Search Results (4)

This study presents an in-depth analysis of the selection process for primary sectors impacting the economic activity in Romania, employing an interval-valued fuzzy (IVF) approach combined with multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methodologies. This research aims to identify eight key criteria influencing the selection of Romanian primary sectors, including technology adaptation, infrastructure development and investment, gross domestic product (GDP), sustainability, employment generation, market demand, risk management and government policies. The current analysis evaluates eight primary sector performances against these eight criteria through the application of three MCDM methods, namely, Simple Additive Weighting (SAW), Weighted Product Model (WPM), and Weighted Aggregated Sum Product Assessment (WASPAS). Ten economic experts comprising a committee have been invited to provide their views on the criteria’s importance and the alternatives’ performance. Based on the decision-maker’s qualitative judgement, GDP acquires the highest weightage, followed by environmental impact and sustainability, thus indicating the most critical factors among the group. The IVF-MCDM hybrid model indicates the energy sector as Romanian primary sector with the most potential, followed by the agriculture and forestry sector among the list of eight alternatives. It also explores the robustness of results by considering sensitivity analysis and the potential impacts of political and international factors, such as pandemics or armed conflicts, on sector selection. The findings indicate consistency in sector rankings across the different methodologies employed, underscoring the importance of methodological choice and criteria weighting. Additionally, this study sheds light on the potential influence of political and international dynamics on sector prioritization, emphasizing the need for comprehensive decision-making frameworks in economic planning processes. Full article

In a wider context of attempting to minimise forestry related occupational hazards, this paper aimed to evaluate the ability of FSC forest management certification to contribute to identifying, describing, and reducing health and safety issues in forest management in Romania. By extracting and analysing the health and safety related non-conformities from auditing reports issued for Romanian forest management operations between 2013 and 2018, the study reveals that the most important risk factors are organizational factors, followed by equipment-related factors. The correlation of the results with other findings in the forest operations literature indicates that forest management certification is a suitable tool to identify and describe the health and safety aspects of forest management related activities, especially for forest operations. The analysis also indicates some possible causes of the high rate of work accidents in Romanian forestry: obsolete and less mechanised technology, low concern for providing and using specific safety equipment, low wages in forest operations, lack of proper training etc. All these aspects point to the need for improving safe organisational culture. Full article

In the last decades, the issue of the behavior geared towards society and the environment of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has created a new niche for economic researches. Most studies point out that entities operating in the forestry sector, despite having difficulties in applying valid corporate social responsibility (CSR) instruments, are concerned about the role they play in society. Therefore, they tend to develop their business by giving importance to the principles of sustainable development. The aim of the paper was to propose an econometric model to report the sustainability of non-financial performance for the companies operating in the forestry field. The main objectives of the study focused on defining and analyzing the studied problem through the specialized literature, defining and conceptualizing the statistical model in order to identify the risk factors and vulnerability, influencing the forestry sector in Romania. In this context, based on a sample of 248 Romanian active companies in the forestry sector in four distinct sectors, we calculated a number of indicators specific to the forestry sector in order to identify the risks and vulnerabilities and analyze the entities associated with this sector. Our research led us to the conclusion that, as far as the forestry sector is concerned, the companies that operate in Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community (NACE) 240 and NACE 210 have registered superior results compared to the average in regards to the vulnerability of the sector, while those that operate in NACE 220 and NACE 230 focus mostly on those vulnerabilities regarding the risk zone of their sustainable development. The study could be useful both to stakeholders by giving them the possibility to identify those entities, classified according to the NACE code, taking into account the sector vulnerabilities and the risks associated with the profile market, as well as to the state that could influence through economic policies the sectors in which vulnerabilities are manifested. Full article

The rate of occupational accidents is increasing, leading to a number of organizational deficiencies. For European Union (EU), the non-fatal accident number in 2017 was 3,315,101. An increase in the number of accidents is recorded in many of the member states. In addition, the increase in accidents tends to focus on certain sectors and is due more to the increase in the incidence rate than the increase in the workforce. Companies in these industry sectors have also implemented less intensive prevention practices than firms in other sectors. Performing a statistical evaluation of non-fatal and fatal accidents is an important one. This assessment helps managers understand the importance of implementing prevention and control methods across organizations. For this research, we used series of data obtained from the Romanian National Institute of Statistics (NIS), Labor Inspection in Romania, and Eurostatof the European Commission. Data series evaluations were conducted for the EU and Romania. A qualitative assessment of the industry data series had been carried out. Furthermore, T-tests and analysis of variance analysis (ANOVA) were performed to identify the relationships between the frequency index of fatal and non-fatal accidents, and the categories chosen. The values obtained for men were significantly higher than those of female workers. Based on the results of the qualitative assessment and European and national strategies, an experimental model for the prevention and control of occupational accidents is proposed. At the end of the paper, the situation of labor accidents in Romania and Bulgaria, two EU member states, is assessed in the agriculture, forestry and fishing, manufacturing, construction and transport, and storage sectors. A series of trends are presented for the period 2018–2020. The results obtained from the evaluation of the data series represent an important core of the Romanian Labor Inspectorate for the development of strategic actions. Full article