Gheorghe Săvoiu

An Empirical Study of the Relationship between Entrepreneurial Curiosity and Innovativeness

Abstract Background and Purpose: Despite scholarly interest in understanding the role of different determinants on entrepreneurs and their behavior, little is known about the relationship between entrepreneurial curiosity and innovativeness. This research explores the relationship between entrepreneurial curiosity, which motivates entrepreneurs to gather information about their business and innovativeness that motivate entrepreneurs to incorporate innovations into entrepreneurial processes. Design/Methodology/Approach: Participants in this study were entrepreneurs from Slovenia and USA. By using structural equation modelling, we linked the two constructs of entrepreneurial curiosity and innovativeness to test the influence. Results: Results indicate that entrepreneurial curiosity positively influences innovativeness. The results of this study indicate that at the frame of entrepreneurship psychology entrepreneurial curiosity is important for innovativeness. Conclusion: This paper links the two studied constructs and presents a valuable contribution for entrepreneurship theory; therefore, the results could be used for a further scientific research as also for practical implications.

Foreign Direct Investment Models, based on Country Risk for Some Post-socialist Central and Eastern European Economies

Abstract This paper identifies several econometric models of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) focused on the country risk, which can also signal other macroeconomic indicators in Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia and Slovak Republic, using data from World Bank and major rating agencies after 1996. The first section presents a brief literature review of FDIs theories and conceptualization. Some methodological aspects and database section provides the statistical and econometrical support of this article and the results consist in several econometric models, parameterized in the Eviews and discussions. The modelling focused on major rating agencies ( Euromoney and its Country Risk - ECR, the best known European agency, using an average value of Moodys, Fitch, Standard & Poors country risk) has proved to be competitive not only for Romania, but also for the other post-socialist Central and Eastern European countries. In order to analyze the background of the econometric modelling of FDI, during a long period of transition, two different trends can be identified: the first emphasizing the importance of R squared in the selecting factors process for the econometric model and the second stressing the primacy of factors’ diversity or the factorial eclecticism. The findings justify the importance of FDI models, as a development factor even in times of recession, highlighting the increasing importance of the country risk signal in different countries, not only of the European Union, but even of global economy. Some final remarks of similitude and alternative constructions close this step by step thought about econometric models of FDI, for the benefit of the future econometric models and new original researches of the authors.

Sociophysics: A New Science or a New Domain for Physicists in a Modern University

A detailed answer or a scientific essay rather than a theoretical or a practical approach to sociophysics, as a new science in modern society, this chapter tries not only to define it but also to analyze the innovations brought into its characteristic domains or into its specific fields. Sociophysics developed from econophysics, being practically a proof of the growing assertiveness and visibility of physicists in the domain of sociology, initially, and then in the field of psychology, and, by extension, over the whole social area, of human behaviors, and even farther. Sociophysics improves the quality of classical sciences and research and its original models and methods, indeed. Sociophysics is a new domain for physicists in a modern university too. Somehow it becomes a living proof that some physicists have recently established careers not only in the banking, financial, life insurance, and marketing, but also in the sociologic academic activities. Simultaneously, academic physicists have become interested in studying sociology, and economists and sociologists in studying statistical physics. After defining what sociophysics is, a brief historical background of the last two decades underlines significant achievements, perspectives, and methods used in the new domain. The few final questions are posed that are not only rhetorical.

The Potential of Econophysics for the Study of Economic Processes

What will be the challenges and opportunities for physicists and economists to work together in the field of social sciences and economics in the years to come? An attempt to define what is the meaning of Econophysics, a brief historical background, some significant achievements and perspectives, together with the specific method used in physics to analyze economic data and economic processes and finally a short review of major results and new domains in refereed literature are the principal themes or the major content of this paper, which remains nothing else but a modest contribution for starting a debate about the outstanding potential of Econophysics.

Services and structural patterns of a post-transition Romanian economy

The present paper reflects a first step in exploring in a systematic way the manner in which services are embedded in the economic life in Romania. The authors believe that service industries, in particular knowledge intensive services, are at the core of this transformational process and economic transitions. This article presents the input–output tables and their role for the real GDP and real growth estimations, the importance of correlation between goods and services, an econometrical analysis of some major matrix of correlation developed from data, and a set of conclusions describing the impact of goods-services correlation on the Romanian economic growth. The three sections are the distinct research objectives: (a) the input–output descriptive images, emphasising statistical characteristics of goods-services liaisons; (b) the evaluation of these correlations with the dynamics of real Romanian GDP, based on the R-squared matrix; (c) the identification of the impact on the real growth of goods-services liaisons for the Romanian economy as a specificity of its stage of development.

A classical German view of public debt and investment in Romania and other ex-socialist economies

The article uses the angle, and it is placed under the influence of the contributions of the representatives of German classical financial economic school, from Carl Dietzel and Lorenz von Stein to Adolph Wagner, whose works, reassessed by Carl-Ludwig Holtfrerich in 2013, are comparable, through their originality, to the English and other European classical schools of economics. The section devoted to the literature review is based on the contributions of the three German economists; the section devoted to method critically analyses the ratio of public debt to GDP, highlighting both the positive aspects of this convergence indicator, and its negative sides, as a relative indicator constructed from comparing two completely different statistical indicators, i.e. stock and flow. The results and discussions focus on the evolution, over the last two decades, of the debt in Romania and other ex-socialist economies, emphasising the need to prioritise the quality of debt management through the agency of the investment factor derived from the overall impact of public debt, and the final conclusions emphasise the need for relativisation of thresholds, taking into account the behaviour of the economies analysed, placing relative emphasis on the case of Romania.

History and Role of Econophysics in Scientific Research

The first chapter of this book tries to describe not only the contemporary relations between economics and physics but also critical and relevant aspects to the new cohabitation between economists and physicists as scientific researchers of economics and physics, in the field of econophysics. The definitional issues of econophysics are detailed on a short historical background and teaching and researching econophysics all over the world and especially in Romania are the final theme of the first analysis. Since econophysics was officially born, Romanian scientific researchers in this multidisciplinary field have published many important papers and some major books. Two main nuclei are currently attracting the new research directions in Romanian econophysics, namely, “Econophysics, New economy and Complexity” (ENEC), International Conference, Organized by the Hyperion University, and Exploratory Domains of econophysics News (EDEN), International Workshop, conducted by the University of Pitesti.

The Efficiency of Capital Markets: Hypothesis or Approximation

The efficient market hypothesis (EMH) is largely an ideal situation, in which the action of available information on price is an instantaneous process. In real financial markets, it is more appropriate to refer to efficient market approximation. Daily logarithmic returns in the Dow–Jones Industrial Average Index data show significant variation in statistics during different decades. While for the all time interval analyzed, 1928–2008, EMH can be seen as an acceptable approximation, we found that for various time intervals, the departure of logarithmic daily returns from a random walk are significant. It is found that periods of dominant positive trends in the price time series, and periods of decline, have different statistical characteristics.

Multidisciplinary Modeling Knowledge and Unidisciplinary Isolation

The conclusions of the EDEN I workshop (Exploratory Domains of Econophysics News), as well as the hopes concerning the multidisciplinary character of the presentations, proceedings, and dialogue generated by EDEN II are the main motivations of the second chapter. The second section’s structure aims at a detailed presentation, in its introductory part, of a number of scientological aspects, intending to give reasons for the ever more significant part played by multidisciplinarity and develops the contemporary concept of multidisciplinary modeling, also identifying some principles of the multidisciplinary models, and, in the final part, states some conclusions connected with a number of interdependences between science and culture.