Journal No Special 5

Amfiteatru Economic Journal

The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies Commerce Faculty

Volume XIII ● November 2011 ● Special No. 5 Semiannual publication

ECONOMIC INTERFERENCES: QUALITY - INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGIES - CONSUMER Amfiteatru Economic Journal is recognized and classified category A by The National University Research Council The Journal is indexed by the following international economic literature databases: ISI Thomson Reuters Services:

- Social Sciences Citation Index - Social Scisearch - Journal Citation Reports/Social Sciences Edition

EBSCO Publishing Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) Journal of Economic Literature (EconLit) Elsevier B.V. Bibliographic Databases (SCOPUS) International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) Cabell’s Directory of Publishing Opportunities (Business Directories – Economics and Finance) ISSN 1582-9146 www.amfiteatrueconomic.ro

http://www.amfiteatrueconomic.ro/

Editorial Board

Editor-in-Chief Vasile Dinu, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania

Associate Editors Mădălina Almă, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania Adriana Corfu, Instituto Politecnico de Viana do Castelo, Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestao, Aveiro, Portugal Irina Drăgulănescu, University of Studies of Messina, Messina, Italy Valentin Hapenciuc, University „Ştefan cel Mare”, Suceava, Romania Florian Kicherer, Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering, Stuttgart, Germania Nicolae Lupu, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania Alexandru Nedelea, University „Ştefan cel Mare”, Suceava, Romania Marieta Olaru, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania Ion Schileru, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania Gabriela Stănciulescu, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania Cătălina Soriana Sitnikov, University of Craiova, Romania Traian Surcel, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania Laurenţiu Tăchiciu, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania George-Sorin Toma, University Bucharest, Romania Aharon Tziner, The Academic College of Netanya, Netanya, Israel Cristinel Vasiliu, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania Călin Valsan, Bishop’s University, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada Milena-Rodica Zaharia, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania

Editorial Advisory Board Aaron Ahuvia, University of Michigan-Dearborn School of Management Dearborn, USA Lucian-Liviu Albu, Romanian Academy - Corresponding Member, Bucharest, Romania Dan-Laurenţiu Anghel, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania Christian Aubin, Université de Poitiers, Poitiers, France George Babu, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, USA Slobodan Cerovic, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Belgrad, Serbia Carlos Costa, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal Emilian Dobrescu, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania Jonathan Edwards, Bournemouth University, Poole, United Kingdom Satoru Enomoto, Okayama University, Okayama City, Japan Daniel Glaser-Segura, College of Business, Texas A&M University - San Antonio, USA Viorel Lefter, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania Petkovska Tatjana Mirchevska, University St. Cyril and Methodius, Skopje, Macedonia Giovanni Palmeiro, Lumsa Univiersita, Roma, Italia Rodica Pamfilie, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania Abraham Pitzam, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, USA Ion Gh. Roşca, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania Ion Stancu, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania Daniel Stavarek, Silesian Univestity, Karvina, Czech Republic Kravciv Vasil Stepanovych, Institute for Regional Research of the Science Academy of Ukraine, Lviv, Ukraine Nicola Yankov, D. Tsenov Academy of Economics, Svishtov, Bulgaria

Founders Vasile Dinu, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania Sandu Costache, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania

Editorial Office Valentin Dumitru, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania Raluca Mariana Petrescu (Assistant Editor), The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania Violeta Rogojan, Publishing House, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania Silvia Răcaru, Publishing House, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania

Vol. XIII • Special No. 5 • November 2011 665

Contents

Quality - Information Technologies - Consumer ....................................................... 667 Vasile Dinu The Impact of the Implementation of ISO 9000 Quality Management System on the Customer Satisfaction Evaluation Process by the Romanian SMEs ............... 669 Marieta Olaru, Ghiorghiţa Stoleriu, Claudia Langă and Ionela Flood The Necessity of Implementing a Quality Management System in the Romanian Medical Units. An Approach from the Patient’s Point of View ................................ 679 Roxana Sârbu and Adriana Zanfir Sustainable Success in Higher Education by Sharing the Best Practices as a Result of Benchmarking Process ................................................................................ 688 Anca Gabriela Ilie, Mihaela Maftei and Oana Antonia Colibăşanu Good Practices Preceding the Implementation of the System of Management of Environment, on Small and Medium Enterprises ...................................................... 698

Anca Atanase, Ion Schileru and Smaranda Vişan Quality Uncertainty as a Barrier to Business Services Development......................... 712

Laurenţiu Tăchiciu, Vasile Dinu and Iacob Kerbalek The Development of Touristic Services through Individual and Organizational Learning. Study Case: Romania and Spain ...................................... 725 Dan Popescu, Iulia Chivu, Alina Ciocârlan-Chitucea and Daniela-Oana Popescu Estimating the Importance of Social Media in Consumers’ Education and Information Using New Techniques .................................................................... 736

Cristian Bogdan Onete, Răzvan Dina and Remus Negoi The Relationship Communication Structure - Uncertainty Avoidance Reflected in Romanian Websites Design .................................................................... 746

Doru Pleşea, Rodica Pamfilie and Irina Maiorescu

The Impact of Information Technologies on the Organization and Functioning of the Company ...................................................................................... 754 Valentin Florentin Dumitru Mutations in the Foodstuff Quality Perception of the New Consumers in Romania ................................................................................ 771 Dorin Popescu, Mihai Negrea and Lelia Voinea The Psycho-sensorial Value of the Food Products – a Provocative Component in Purchase Decision .............................................................................. 780

Magdalena Bobe and Roxana Procopie

Amfiteatru Economic 666

Potential Connections between Migration and Immigrants’ Food Consumption Habits. The Case of Romanian Immigrants in Andalusia, Spain .............................. 790

Andreea Simona Săseanu and Raluca Mariana Petrescu


Quality - Information Technologies - Consumer

Companies and consumers live in a world where the Internet is one of its defining elements, information technologies increasingly marking all the activities undertaken by

them. With increased access to information, with a strong desire for knowledge, and with

increased standards, both companies and consumers pay an important attention to quality

and information technologies, which are, on the one hand, a sure path to success for an

entrepreneur and, on the other hand, the confirmation of a correct choice for a consumer.

Therefore, in a society increasingly characterized by words and phrases such as

“information”, “internet”, “social media”, “standards”, the orientation of the academic

environment towards research in the fields of quality, information technologies, and

consumer is inevitable.

This special number of the journal highlights the concern of a series of researchers in the

economics area on specific issues, respectively regarding aspects associated with quality, information technologies, and consumer.

Regarding the quality of products and services, the articles in this number are

distinguished by the importance given to issues such as the implementation of quality

management, benchmarking, good practices preceding the implementation of the system of

management, and the quality of services, as follows:

“The Impact of the Implementation of ISO 9000 Quality Management System on

the Customer Satisfaction Evaluation Process by the Romanian SMEs” highlights the

degree to which SMEs use the results of evaluation and monitoring of customer satisfaction

in the process of redesigning and improvement of the quality of products and services;

“The Necessity of Implementing a Quality Management System in the Romanian

Medical Units. An Approach from the Patient’s Point of View” approaches – from the perspective of quality management – the problems of the Romanian health system and the

deficiencies which influence the quality of the provided services, accomplishing an analysis

of the consumer’s perception regarding the quality of health services, and the necessity of

implementing a quality management system in the units providing health services;

“Sustainable Success in Higher Education by Sharing the Best Practices as a Result

of Benchmarking Process” reviews the main benchmarking criteria, based on the quality

indicators used by the higher education institutions and presents new indicators of reference

as a result of the inter-universities cooperation;

“Good Practices Preceding the Implementation of the System of Management of

Environment, on Small and Medium Enterprises” highlights an exemplary performance of

a small organisation that managed to settle an informal system of management of

environment, built up with much rigour, involvement, respect for society and environment, with the aim to provide a series of good practices for the business environment – in the

SMEs area – and methods of approach in environmental practices analysis and to

emphasize the imperatives in this area of action for organizations;

“Quality Uncertainty as a Barrier to Business Services Development” outlines a

review of existing conceptual models of service quality assessment, discusses the

668 Amfiteatru Economic

implications of information asymmetry, and explores – based on the information obtained

from the selected service providers - the situation in specific industries, as well as the

solutions for overcoming the current shortcomings;

“The Development of Touristic Services through Individual and Organizational

Learning. Study Case: Romania and Spain” aims to establish and to design development

strategies for services in SMEs active in the tourism branch, outlining the weaknesses and

the strengths of touristic services management approaches and defining recommendations.

The articles in this number related to information technologies highlight issues such as

social media, web sites design, and their impact on companies’ activity, as follows:

“Estimating the Importance of Social Media in Consumers’ Education and

Information Using New Techniques” outlines the results of a research carried out with the

aim to highlight the relationship between the new consumer and bio food;

“The Relationship Communication Structure - Uncertainty Avoidance Reflected in

Romanian Websites Design” offers a perspective about the way in which the

communication structure specific to various cultures, the uncertainty avoidance behaviour,

and the cognitive features of gender influence the design of Romanian websites;

“The Impact of Information Technologies on the Organization and Functioning of

the Company”, based on an empirical research, highlights the IT impact on the company.

The articles dealing with the new consumer focus on the perception of quality and on the

psycho-sensorial value of food, and also on relationships between migration and food

consumption habits, as follows:

“Mutations in the Foodstuff Quality Perception of the New Consumers in Romania”

presents the objectives of a research project developed in order to highlight the mutations

that occurred in the foodstuff quality perception of the new consumers from Romania;

“The Psycho-sensorial Value of the Food Products – A Provocative Component in

Purchase Decision” focuses on the necessity to design the psycho-sensorial value of

processed foods, and on the importance of educating and informing the consumers for a

better capacity to get oriented on the market, and implicitly, for a right purchase decision;

“Potential Connections between Migration and Immigrants’ Food Consumption Habits. The Case of Romanian Immigrants in Andalusia, Spain” - based on analyzing a set

of information obtained through a field research carried out during January-June 2011

among Romanian immigrants in Andalusia, Spain - highlights the potential relationships

between migration and food consumption habits of immigrants, with an emphasis on a

series of factors that could contribute to the establishment of these relationships.

Quality, information technologies, and consumers are key elements of the contemporary

society, with implications in all areas. This requires that a fair and comprehensive approach

to any socio-economic phenomenon to consider its relationship with at least one of the

elements mentioned above.

Editor-in-chief,

Vasile Dinu

Economic Interferences: Quality - Information Technologies - Consumer AE


THE IMPACT OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ISO 9000 QUALITY

MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ON THE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

EVALUATION PROCESS BY THE ROMANIAN SMEs

Marieta Olaru1

, Ghiorghiţa Stoleriu2, Claudia Langă

3 and Ionela Flood

4

1) Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania

2) Tecnoservice Bucharest SA, Romania

3) Romsir SRL, Balş, Romania

4) Romanca Society, United Kingtom

Abstract

The paper highlights a part of the results of the research carried out at the level of Romanian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the period 2007-2010.

One of the objectives of the research was to determine the way the Romanian SMEs use the

results of evaluation and monitoring of customer satisfaction in the process of redesigning

and improvement of the quality of products and services. These results were compared with

those obtained in a study with the same purpose, conducted by the authors, in 2003-2004; it

resulted a major progress in the process of evaluating and monitoring customer satisfaction

by SMEs in Romania.

Furthermore, the research carried out showed that there is still significant reluctance in

terms of using the results of this process, in connection with the concerns to ensure a

sustainable performance for these companies.

Keywords: customer satisfaction, evaluation, monitoring, Small and Medium Enterprises,

ISO 9000.

JEL Classification: L15, M13

Introduction

In the current economic context marked by the phenomenon of market internationalization,

the companies are required to pay special attention to satisfying customer requirements and

other stakeholders, to withstand on these markets, in terms of the strong increasing

conditions of competition (Bruhn, 2006; Olaru and Dincă, 2008; Olaru and Herlemann,

2008). It is appreciated that gaining the customer’s loyalty and winning new customers, is

the major route through which the enterprise can create a value for its shareholders

(Stoleriu and Olaru, 2007; Suditu, Olaru, Langă and Tuclea, 2009; Zineldin, 2006).

Corresponding author, Marieta Olaru – [email protected]

AE The Impact of the Implementation of ISO 9000 Quality Management System on the Customer Satisfaction Evaluation Process by the Romanian SMEs


According to this, we witness a more clear orientation of the models of quality management

systems promoted by the international standards ISO 9000 to the re-organization processes

in terms of satisfying customers' requirements, but also other stakeholders in order to

ensure a sustainable business development (Evans, 2008; Olaru and Dincă, 2008; Olaru,

Pitic and Dodre, 2009; Olaru et al., 2010a; Stoleriu, 2009). The specialised literature is

extensively debating on the impact of implementation of the model defined by the ISO

9000 standards on business performance (Heras-Saizarbitoria, Casadesús and Marimón,

2011; Hongyi, 2000; Piskar, 2009; Suditu, Olaru, Langă and Tuclea, 2009), taking into

account the specificities of SMEs (Bewoor and Pawar, 2010; Fotopoulos, Psomas and

Vouzas, 2010; Stoleriu, Olaru and Purcǎrea, 2009).

In view of these standards, the organizations depend on their customers and therefore

should understand their current and future needs, to satisfy these requirements, while preoccupied on overpass the customer’s expectations. Moreover, it emphasized that "an

organization's success is based on satisfying the needs and expectations of current and

future customers and potential final users, as well as taking into consideration other

stakeholders” (International Standards Office, 2008; International Standards Office,

2009). Also the mentioned standards provide guidance to achieve a sustainable success of

the business in a complex, ever changing and demanding environment though a quality

management based approach. Thus, according to ISO 9004:2009, the sustainable success of

an organization can be achieved by developing its capacity to meet the needs and

expectations of its customers and other stakeholders, in the long term and in a balanced

way. An important role in this regard is the management of the organization, which should

ensure the awareness of the organization environment, to stimulate learning and proper implementation of improvement measures in connection with those relating to the

development and innovation capacity of the enterprise (International Standards Office,

2009).

In this respect, the evaluation and the monitoring of the customer satisfaction plays an

important role, as this process allows the identification of customer requirements and

determines the degree of compliance with these requirements.

The customer related performance is usually evaluated in connection with: the customer

number evolution, the number of new clients, the market share development, the effect of

losing the customers etc.; the customer satisfaction is a determinant to achieving objectives

related to the financial performance of the company in general (Fuller and Matzler, 2008;

Evans, 2008). Therefore the balance of satisfied customers, their opinions, the number of

complaints, their nature and content, are important sources of information for the company, which can be used to identify new opportunities to improve products and services,

respectively their system management. This is how business premises are provided to

improve their performance.

Due to the increasing demands of the European business environment, SMEs in Romania

recognize the need for deep changes in their performance in relation with the customers, as

a source for continuous improvement of their competitiveness (Commission of The

European Communities, 2008; Commission of The European Communities, 2010).

The update and adaptation of the policy priorities of Romania in the fields of SMEs,

compared to the European Union level, is done by the “Government Strategy for the

development of the SME sector by 2013”, which was prepared according to the policies



promoted by the European Commission “Small Business Act for Europe” (Commission of The European Communities, 2008) and the Guidelines “Europe 2020 Strategy- a European

strategy for smart, sustainable and Inclusive Growth” (Commission of The European

Communities, 2010). Some key components of the policy include the increase of SMEs

competitiveness, by developing a new culture for quality in Romania, mainly through

developing the business support structure, as well as to increase the innovative spirit of the

SMEs (Ministerul Economiei, Comertului si Mediului de Afaceri, 200-).

Taking into consideration these aspects, the paper highlights some of the research results

based on a questionnaire carried out between 2007 and 2010 to determine to what extent

Romanian’s SMEs capitalize the results of evaluation and monitoring customer satisfaction

in the process of redesigning and improving quality of products and services in relation to

more substantial concerns of these companies on implementing a quality management

system ISO 9000 (Olaru et al., 2010b; Paraschiv et. al., 2010; Stoleriu and Olaru, 2007). These results have been compared with those obtained in a study conducted by the authors

for the same purpose during the period 2003-2004 (Olaru and Stoleriu, 2006).

1. Research Methodology

In order to evaluate the interest of Romanian SMEs on the implementation of quality

management systems and performance of these organizations in relation to the European

model of quality management, a questionnaire based study was carried out, between 2007

and 2010 (Olaru et al., 2008; Olaru et al., 2010b). 3100 questionnaires were sent and 1227

filled in questionnaires were received, out of which 830 in the field of services (698 SMEs

and 132 large enterprises). For the evaluation of answers a scale with five levels of

appreciation was used, from „not at all” to „very much”/ „entirely” (if applicable), and for a part of the questions the answers had two options, affirmative or negative.

In this paper the results obtained after the processing of the question related of monitoring

and evaluation the customer’s satisfaction by the surveyed SMEs are presented. On this

purpose the questionnaire included the following question, with the options related to "the

measurement and monitory of customer’s satisfaction led to” (multiple answers are

allowed):

identifying customer’s requirements;

redesigning the products based on the new requirements of customers;

increasing customer’s satisfaction by improving product’s quality;

establishing corrective/ preventive actions as a result of customer’s complaints;

establishing and implementing a continuous improvement program.

As shown in figure no. 1, about 63% of the surveyed SMEs, from the services area and

77% of those in the production field have more than five years of activity.



SMEs from the services area

37%

31%

32% <5 years

5-10 years

>10 years

37

SMEs from the production area

23%

29%

48%<5 years

5-10 years

>10 years

Figure no. 1: The distribution of the surveyed SMEs during the study conducted in

2007-2010, according to their period of activity

The results of the research were compared with those obtained from a similar research

performed by the authors between 2003 and 2004, which enabled the formulation of

conclusions on SMEs development in in this area. The respective study was conducted on a

sample of 371 SMEs, of which 278 in production and 93 in services (Olaru and Stoleriu, 2006).

2. Research results

Taking into consideration the results of the research conducted in 2003-2004 and global

changes, as well as the consequences of Romania's EU accession, within the research

conducted during 2007 - 2010 we proposed to check the following hypotheses:

The usage degree by the Romanian SMEs of the data obtained during the measurement and monitoring of customer’s satisfaction has increased because of new

requirements arising from the EU member state status and as a result of increased customer

demands.

The services field - a permanent evolving area - significantly increased the interest of the SMEs to assess and systematically monitor customer’s satisfaction for a better use of

the obtained results.

Romanian SMEs give a greater importance to continuous improvement of the activities as part of the process of improving the overall performance of their quality

management system.

2.1 The use of the results for the evaluation and monitoring of customer’s satisfaction

in the process of redesigning the products and services

The research performed during the period 2007-2010 reveals the fact that 80% of the

questioned SME’s use „much” and „very much” the data resulted from the measurement

and monitoring of the clients’ satisfaction to identify their new requests, while according to

the previous performed research, the share of those enterprises was 70% (figures no. 2 and

no. 3) (Olaru et al., 2008; Olaru et al., 2010b).



Such a growth was expected given the fact that the competition became very strong, the technological development rhythm has accelerated, the clients’ demands had risen and the

consumers and environment protection requirements became more and more restrictive.

According to the same research, the obtained data in the process of evaluation and

monitoring of clients’ satisfaction is used „much” and „very much”, for the products and

services’ redesign, by 57% of the questioned SME’s from the services area and by 65% of

those in production area (figure no. 2).

Also, it can be noticed the fact that the SME’s from services area had substantially

increased the degree to which their results are further used regarding the evaluation and

monitoring of clients’ satisfaction, in comparison with the reference year of 2003, when,

according to the research performed at that time, only 25% of the questioned SME’s had

declared the fact that they rely mostly on these results. Therefore, SME’s from services area

give a higher importance to the development of some new services and improvement of the existing ones, according to the more diversified clients’ requests.

40

50

60

70

80

90

Identification of client

demands

Redesigning of product based

on new client demands

Quality product improvementEstablishment of corrective

and preventice actions

Continous improvement

program

SMEs in the services area

SMEs in the production area

Figure no. 2: The share of Romanian SMEs which were using „much” and „very

much” the resulted data in the process of measurement and monitoring the clients’

satisfaction (according to the performed research in the period 2007-2010)

Increasing the usefulness of the results of the evaluation and monitoring of clients’

satisfaction is, on the one hand, a result of the general evolution of SME’s from Romania and on the other hand, it proves their capacity to adapt to more and more difficult market

conditions.



2.2 Usage of the evaluation and monitoring results of the clients’ satisfaction in the

process of improvement of the offered products and services’ quality and for the set of

corrective and preventive actions

The clients’ satisfaction level is highly influenced by the quality of the products and offered

services. As it results from the figures no. 2 and no. 3, the interest of SME’s for using the

data provided by the clients in order to improve the quality of products and services,

remained relative constant. Therefore, according to both researches, the majority of the

questioned SME’s (80%) are concerned with improving the quality of the provided

products and services, taking into consideration the feedback from the clients.

A significant growth of the results usage degree regarding the evaluation and monitoring of

clients’ satisfaction it is observed in the process of the preventive and corrective actions set

in the case of services area SME’s. Thus, if in accordance with 2003-2004 research results, only 45% of those enterprises were using the respective data to set preventive and

corrective actions, according to the performed research in the period 2007-2010, the share

of those enterprises has grown at 66%.

An important factor that facilitated this evolution was represented by the growth of the

SME’s interest for implementing the ISO 9000 quality management system models. It

should be noted the fact that year 2003 has been the transition year from the 1997 edition to

the 2000 edition of the ISO 9001 standard, latter edition which has emphasized the

importance of the satisfaction of clients’ demands and the top management role in the

implementation and continuous improvement of the quality management systems (Olaru et

al., 2010a; Olaru et al., 2010b).

2.3 Usage of the results of the evaluation and monitoring of the clients’ satisfaction for

setting and implementing a continuous improvement program

As a result of data processing obtained according to the performed research in the period

2007-2010, it resulted that: in the case of SME’s from services area their interest for using

the results of evaluation and monitoring of client’s satisfaction for setting and

implementing a continuous improvement program had grown substantially. Thus 55% from

the questioned SME’s from services area use those results for the set and implementation of

some continuous improvement programs (figure no. 2), compared to the previously

analysed period, when the share of those enterprises was only of 23% (figure no. 3).



20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Identification of client

demands

Redesigning of product based

on new client demands

Quality product improvementEstablishment of corrective

and preventice actions

Continous improvement

program

SMESs in the services area

SMES in the production area

Figure no. 3: The shares of Romanian SMEs which were using „much” and „very

much” the resulted data in the process of measurement and monitoring the clients’

satisfaction (according to the performed study in the period 2003-2004)

Analysing the obtained results it can be said that all three hypotheses, which formed the

basis of the performed research in the period 2007-2010, had been confirmed.

Thus, SME’s in Romania have improved the capacity of capitalisation the results of

measurement and monitoring of clients’ satisfaction in the process of redesigning the products and services, being mostly preoccupied to set and implement continuous

improvement programs, accordingly to the clients’ requests.

It is also confirmed the fact that SME’s from services area had substantially improved their

services redesigning capacity and their quality improvement, using in a better way the

results of evaluations and systemic monitoring of clients’ satisfaction.

The latter hypothesis on growing the interest for continuous improving of the organisation

activities, as an integrating part of the process of the global improving process of the

quality management systems, hasn’t been confirmed entirely. So, even if there has been a

positive evolution in the case of SME’s from services it was expected that in the context of

implementation of the procedural approach of the management system ISO 9000 the focus

to be put on the use of some performance indicators better adapted to the requirements of

this model.

Conclusions

Taking into account the results of the research performed between the period 2007-2010, in

comparison with those obtained within the research during 2003-2004, the SME’s noticed

an obvious progress regarding the process of evaluation and monitoring of the clients’



satisfaction, the results of this process being mostly used for the redesign and improvement

of the offered products and services’ quality.

Also, in the context of implementation of the new quality management system models, the

Romanian SMEs give a higher importance to defining some corrective and preventive

actions, and respectively for the settlement and the implementation of some continuous

improvement programs, according to the clients’ requirements.

On the other hand, it can be noted that there still exist many possibilities regarding the use

of some performance indicators better adapted to the procedural approach model of the

quality management system, defined by the ISO 9000 international standards, regarding the

results of the measurement and monitoring of the clients’ satisfaction process. This

continuous improvement process can ensure a sustainable performance in the case of

SMEs, in the current complex and dynamic economic context.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by CNCSIS –UEFISCSU, through the project ID 856 PN II –

IDEI, code 273//2007 and through the project PN II-RU code TE_328/2010.

References

Bruhn, M., 2006. Qualitätsmanagement für Diensleistungen. Grundlagen. Konzepte.

Methoden. 6 Auflage. Berlin Heidelberg: Springer - Verlag.

Bewoor, A.K. and Pawar, M.S., 2010. An empirical study of the motives and benefits of

QMS/ISO implementation among Indian SMEs. International Journal of Productivity

and Quality Management (IJPQM), 6(3), pp. 379-406.

Commission of The European Communities, 2008.“Think smart first” – A “Small Business

Act” for Europe. [online] Available at: <http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/

LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2008:0394:FIN:en:PDF> [Accessed 25 May 2011].

Commission of The European Communities, 2010. Europe 2020 - The EU strategy for

smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. [online] Available at:

<http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/ structural_reforms/europe_2020/index_en.htm> [Accessed 25 May 2011].

Evans, J.E., 2008. Quality & Performance Excellence. Management, Organization and

Strategy. 5th ed. South-Western U.K: CENGAGE Learning.

Fotopoulos, C.V., Psomas, E.L. and Vouzas, F.L., 2010. Investigating total quality

management practice's inter-relationships in ISO 9001:2000 certified organisations.

Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 21(5), pp. 503–551.

Fuller, J. and Matzler, K., 2008. Customer delight and market segmentation: An

application of the three-factor theory of customer satisfaction on life style groups.

International Journal of Tourism Management, 29(10), pp. 116-226.

Heras-Saizarbitoria, I., Casadesús, M. and Marimón, F., 2011. The impact of ISO 9001

standard and the EFQM model: The view of the assessors. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 22(2), pp. 197–218.

http://ec.europa.eu/%20europe2020/index_en.htm

http://ec.europa.eu/%20europe2020/index_en.htm

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a933722175~frm=titlelink

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a933722175~frm=titlelink



Hongyi, S., 2000. Total quality management, ISO 9000 certification and performance improvement. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 17(2),

pp.168 – 179.

International Standards Office, 2008. ISO 9001 - Quality management systems.

Requirements. Geneva: ISO.

International Standards Office, 2009. ISO 9004 - Managing for the sustained success of an

organization. A quality management approach. Geneva: ISO.

Ministerul Economiei, Comertului si Mediului de Afaceri, 200-. Strategia Guvernamentala

pentru dezvoltarea sectorului intreprinderilor mici si mijlocii. [online] Available at:

<http://www.minind.ro/imm/StrIMM_Doc_23022011.pdf> [Accessed 29 January

2011].

Olaru, M. and Stoleriu, G., 2006. Study on the Effects of Implementing a Surveillance and

Evaluation System for Customer Satisfaction in the Case of Romanian Small and Medium Enterprises. In: IGWT, The 15th Symposium IGWT „Global Safety of

Commodity and Environment. Quality of Life”. Kiev, Ukraine, 12-17 September 2006.

Kiev: s.n.

Olaru, M. and Dincă, V., 2008. Ensuring a fair competition for SMEs in the European

Union. In: ASEBUSS, First ASEBUSS International Conference on “Building &

Sustaining Competitive Advantage in a Global Business Environment”. Bucharest, Romania, 16 September 2008. Bucharest: SRAC.

Olaru, M. and Herlemann, H., 2008, Improvement of competitiveness of international

companies in a multicultural environment. Amfiteatru Economic, X(Special issue 2),

pp. 48-53.

Olaru, M. et al., 2008, Increase in the competitiveness of SMEs in Romania by

implementing a model of evaluation and improvement of their performances in

accordance with the European quality management model. Scientific Research in the

Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies. Results obtained from IDEI and Human

Resources Projects. Bucharest: ASE.

Olaru, M., Pitic, D. and Dodre, C., 2009. Social responsibility of Romanian SMEs within

the context of financial crisis and sustainable development. Quality – Access to Success

Journal, 10(11), pp. 3-10.

Olaru, M. et al., 2010a. Responsible Commercial Activity Of SMEs And Specific Values

Of Sustainable Development In Terms Of The European Excellence Model. Amfiteatru

Economic, XI(27), pp. 10-26.

Olaru, M. et al., 2010b. Increasing the competitiveness of SMEs in Romania by

implementing a model of evaluation and improvement of their performances in accordance with the European model of quality management. Final research report.

[online] Available at: <www.idei856.ase.ro> [Accessed 1 September 2011].

Paraschiv, D. et. al., 2010, Model for the evaluation and improvement of the eco-

innovation capacity of Romanian SMEs with a view to ensure their sustainable

development, in accordance with the EU requirements – ECOINNRO, Research report.

Piskar, F., 2009, The Impact of the Quality Management System ISO 9000 on Customer

Satisfaction on Slovenian Companies. [online] Available at: <www.fm-

kp.si/zalozba/ISSN/1581-6311/5_045-061.pdf > [Accessed 9 June 2011].



Stoleriu, G. and Olaru, M., 2007. Considerations regarding the relationship management

with client in case of SMEs from Romania. Quality – Access to Success Journal,

Special issue, 8(9), pp.328-333.

Stoleriu, G., 2009. The aspects regarding the quality management systems in the SMEs

from Romania. Bucharest: OSCAR PRINT.

Stoleriu, G., Olaru, M. and Purcǎrea, I., 2009. Developing an innovation-oriented

organizational culture for Romanian small and medium enterprises. In: MTC, The 6th

International Conference on Management of Technological Changes. Alexandroupolis,

Greece, 3-5 September 2009. S.l.: Democritus University of Thrace, Greece.

Suditu, C., Olaru, M., Langă, C. and Tuclea, F., 2009. Impact assessment of the integrated

quality - environmental - occupational health and safety management system on

customers satisfaction in metallurgical industry in Romania. In: MTC, The 6th

International Conference on Management of Technological Changes. Alexandroupolis,

Greece, 3-5 September 2009. S.l.: Democritus University of Thrace, Greece.

Zineldin, M., 2006. The royalty of loyalty: CRM quality and retention. Journal of

Consumer Marketing, 23(7), pp. 430-437.



THE NECESSITY OF IMPLEMENTING A QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

IN THE ROMANIAN MEDICAL UNITS. AN APPROACH FROM THE

PATIENT’S POINT OF VIEW

Roxana Sârbu1

and Adriana Zanfir2

1) 2 )Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract The medical services organizations activate in a specific featured environment, extremely

sensitive, dynamic and most of the times unpredictable. In order to develop their activity at

a high qualitative level, medical units must possess the ability of accepting the changes that

might occur, of identifying and valorizing the possible opportunities and, at the same time,

they must have the ability of avoiding risks as much as possible. The medical field

considers quality a variable which is hard to quantify and which could be perceived as the

result of the comparison between the medical service desired/requested by the client and the

provided health service or the extent to which the provided service corresponds to the

client’s expectations.

The current paper refers to the growing problems of the Romanian health system and it also

takes into consideration the deficiencies which influence the quality of the provided services. The approach manner of this particular theme is realized by taking into account

the quality management system. At the same time, there is made an analysis of the

consumer’s perception regarding both the quality of health services and the necessity of

implementing a quality management system in all units providing health services. The

research is based on a rich study of the professional literature, on articles and scientific

papers in this field of activity. The data was collected by applying a questionnaire to the

population which has been provided medical services over the past year.

Keywords: quality management system, medical units, health services, quality, quality

standards

JEL Classification: I10, I18, I19

Introduction

The health services field is an extremely sensitive one, full of uncertainties, and having

specific features, the activity of health providing services being realized according to the

legislation and rules regarding the assurance and maintenance of public health. In an

Corresponding author, Roxana Sârbu - [email protected]

AE The Necessity of Implementing a Quality Management System in the Romanian Medical Units. An Approach from the Patient’s Point of View

Economic Amphitheater 680

economical environment which has suffered a series of transformations over the last few

years, an approach of health services quality cannot be avoided. The assurance of health

represents both a necessity and an obligatory requirement for all organizations which desire

to obtain long term performances in their field, regardless of their dimensions or object of

activity. As time goes by, quality proves to be a complex and dynamic notion; most of the

times, quality is defined by means of those elements which are related to the concept of

non-quality or lack of quality rather than a concept with its own paradigm, reflecting

various cultural, political, national, regional or global socio-economical perspectives

(Sârbu, Scurtulescu and Bucur, 2007). Quality is desired by every person, no matter if it

refers to a product or a service and it represents a long chain of challenges, at a both

individual and organizational level. Health services are complex and they regard the entire

population of a specific country; therefore, they are characterized by peculiar features, in the sense that these cannot be substituted or looked at with easiness as they represent, in

fact, a true value of mankind. A good health is an essential condition of an improving life

quality, regardless of the type of health to which we refer (physical, mental, social,

intellectual or spiritual). The quality of health services can be perceived from the

consumer’s/patient’s point of view or from the perspective of the dealer or that of the

service providing organizations. However, despite the manner of approaching it, it is

obvious that any error made in providing medical services has a great impact over the

involved parties (figure no. 1).

Figure no. 1: Quality of services which are offered by health structure

Source: adapted after Luchian, 2005, p. 183.

In the medical field, the value vectors which refer to quality are (Luchian, 2005):

an excellent medical practice;

introducing modern integrated techniques and procedures, appreciated by the

patients;



reducing the costs or maintaining them at a constant level under the circumstances of a continuous growth of efficiency and productivity.

The nursing quality is a dynamic concept which correlates its dimensions with the patient,

the social context, the organizational context and the environmental one. Quality

assessment must be based on a process of defining the conceptual and operational

framework referring to the meaning of “medical assistance quality”. This fundamental level

implies a series of issues, and the nursing quality is obviously a notion very difficult to

define (Donabedian, 2005).

Quality’s dimensions are given a great deal of importance in the professional literature, the

most important assessments in this direction having been made since 2004 (Vlădescu,

2004):

Attendance accessibility - the patients’ easiness of obtaining the medical attendance

services when needed;

Attendance specificity - the extent to which a correct medical attendance is being

assured, given the current state of the activity;

Attendance regularity - the extent to which the medical attendance needed by the

patients is coordinated in time between practitioners and organizations;

Attendance proficiency - the extent to which the attendance is approached in a

correct manner, without errors, according to the current state of the activity;

Attendance effectiveness - the extent to which a service has the potential of satisfying

the needs for which it was created;

Attendance efficiency - the extent to which the provided attendance rises to its true

potential, with a minimum effort and at a minimum cost;

Patient oriented services - the extent to which the patients are involved in the process of making decisions regarding those problems which are directly related to their

health and the satisfaction degree;

The security of the attendance environment - the extent to which the environment

lacks hazard or danger;

Attendance timetable - the extent to which the patients are being attended, when

necessary.

Recently, the quality of medical attendance services has also faced another reference frame,

the most important dimensions of this new context being the following:

The personnel’s professional abilities – it refers to the set of knowledge, abilities and

performances possessed by this field’s professionals.

Interpersonal relationships - the interaction between the “actors” involved in this field and the set of relationships established between the patient and the medical services

providing organization;

Free choice of the provider, type of insurance or treatment;



Infrastructure and comfort - cleaning, comfort, intimacy or other important aspects

for the patients.

An extremely important aspect is mentioned by CoNAS (The National Committee of

Hospital Accreditation) in the Accreditation Manual for Hospitals; this aspect refers to

“equity”, in the sense of an equal treatment, commensurate to the gravity of the cases for

any patient (CoNAS, 2010).

Some of the main reference points of the health system, as part of the social model, are

suggested by (Păuna et al., 2007):

Developing a compulsory health insurance system and promoting a global and

socially acceptable system, based on the principles of solidarity and equity and ensuring the

access of various social groups at a guaranteed basic package containing rights and health

services;

Reducing the inequities and the disequilibrium between offer (service quality and

availability) and demand (knowledge about health, hygiene and treatment opportunities,

service access);

Ensuring an efficient and transparent health system, oriented towards promoting the

health state, preventing and treating various diseases.

The content and complexity of defining the population’s health condition increase the

difficultness of showing exactly what a health system really is, where it begins and where it

ends (Ristea, Stegăroiu, Ioan-Franc and Dinu, 2009).

Starting from the great importance of quality in what concerns medical services, we will try

to analyze the necessity of implementing a quality management system in those medical

units which provide health services, also taking into account the fact that the patient is the main element of any health system.

1. Research methodology

The research consists of the following steps: professional literature documentation; the

identification of the health services’ major deficiencies which influence the quality of the

medical service; elaborating a questionnaire in order to assess the patients’ perception over

the quality of services; the analysis of the answers; highlighting the necessity of

implementing a quality management system in all medical units. In order to develop this

research and to obtain realistic answers we used - as an analysis instrument - a

questionnaire applied to the population who has been given medical attendance in the

country, over the past year. This survey has been conceived for both a quantitative and a qualitative assessment of some key-components, such as the deficiencies of the system

which have a major impact over the performance of the Romanian health system.

The research was based on the analysis of 500 questionnaires, delivered online, in order to

facilitate the process of collecting and grouping the data and the information obtained. It is

highly important to notice the fact that during this analysis we have taken into account only

the opinion of those persons who benefited directly from the health services system, over

the 2010-2011 period, in Romanian medical units. In order to obtain a proper development

of this research, it wouldn’t have been relevant to take into account the opinion of those



persons receiving medical treatment in another country, because they have the tendency of comparing certain elements and contexts with those encountered abroad; this fact would

have negatively influenced their perception in what regards the quality of the Romanian

medical services. Therefore, from the total of 500 applied questionnaires, we considered

only 439 of them to be relevant for our research as they provided answers which were

related to the Romanian health system. A number of 61 questionnaires were annulled as

their answers didn’t fit the requirements.

As presented (table no. 1), the questions were conceived in order to provide a set of

relevant data for the assessment of the main factor which influence the performance level of

the Romanian health system.

There had been used a total of 20 questions, 18 of them having pre-formulated answers and

the other 2 having open answers.

The main objective of this research was the analysis of the implementation of a quality management system in all Romanian medical units, the target being a continuous

improvement of the services provided by the medical system. Another goal was raising the

patients’ trust level regarding the Romanian health services.

Table no. 1: The Questionnaire

No. Applied questions

1. Which is your country of residence?

2. Gender: male or female?

3. What age range do you fit in?

4. Do you benefit from a social health insurance in Romania?

5. Have you received medical services over the past year?

6. Do you trust the Romanian health system?

7. Do you consider that you have enough information about the Romanian health system?

8. Have you been informed about the rights that you have as a patient?

9. Do you consider that the Romanian hospitals fully respect patients’ rights?

10. How do you appreciate the costs of health services as compared to your incomes?

11. Did the health services correspond to the expectations?

12. Do you consider that the Romanian hospitals present a high risk of intrahospital infections (nosocomial infection)?

13. How do you appreciate the quality of the health services that you have been provided?

14. Which of the following deficiencies of the health system do you consider to influence the most the quality of health services?

- Under-financing health units; - The manager’s inappropriate inventory of the received funds; - The low number of medical personnel; - The personnel’s lack of motivation as a result of the salary’s low level as compared

to work conditions.

15. How do you appreciate the accessibility of health services?

16. Is it necessary to apply a series of measures in order to rapidly improve the quality of medical services?

17. Do you consider that “the focus on the patient” approach should be perceived as the main criterion of any medical unit?



18. In your opinion, does the “continual improvement of the quality in what regards the health services” represent a criterion which leads to performance in the medical field, improving at the same time the life conditions?

19. If you had the opportunity, would you choose the medical services of a hospital abroad?

20. In your opinion, which country member of the European Union has the most efficient medical system?

2. Data analysis and interpretation

This survey also addressed young people, the questions being delivered regardless the respondents’ educational level or social condition. We tried to obtain relevant data for a

medium range of the approached interest object, as we didn’t refer to luxury services, but to

services which should be accessible to any patient. Acknowledging the impact of the

medical system’s deficiencies, we elaborated this type of survey in order to notice if the

patients consider that medical services need to be improved or the organizations providing

medical services satisfy the patients’ requirements. Aspects such as the doctor-patient

relationship – which often implies assuming the former’s disapproval of the latter’s

opinion, in order to defend the patient’s interests, highly individualizing the basic rules of

the clients relationship management, the acceptable level of patients’ guidance in contexts

in which he, perceived as a buyer, fully bearing the risk, the persistency of the

informational asymmetry (patients might become more informed, but it doesn’t mean that they are better informed) combined with the real need of incorporating the patients’

expertise in the medical attendance process, complicates the agenda of the management in

the case of the medical system (Prejmerean and Vasilache, 2009).

The level of medical services quality has been analyzed from the medical services

consumer’s point of view that is considered to be the key-element of any health system. In

the medical field, the patient assesses the quality; therefore, when the service that he

receives doesn’t fit his expectations – regardless their objectivity or subjectivity – the

patient has the tendency of negatively assessing the quality of the medical services, creating

therefore a less favorable bigger picture of the medical system.

The respondents’ majority consists of young people between the age 20 and 40 (figure no.

2).

Figure no. 2: The distribution of respondents, by gender



The population’s perception regarding the quality of medical services is not a favorable one. The fact that from a total of 439 respondents, only 27 persons trust the Romanian

health system should represent an alarm signal. This lack of trust is generated either by the

fact that the respondents are not correctly informed with regard to the manner in which

health services are provided, or by the fact that they lack data about the rights they possess

as patients. From the patient’s point of view, the accessibility to medical services is highly

difficult. Approximately 83% of the respondents consider that health services have high

costs as compared to their incomes. There are a lot of factors which determine a decrease of

the medical services quality in Romania. Among these, we notice: lack of financing

according to needs, inappropriate management of funds, the medical apparatus’ lack of

performance, lack of personnel, the personnel’s inappropriate remuneration, the disaccord

between offer and demand. These deficiencies are real and they have been noticed by the

majority of the persons involved in this research. 70% consider that the quality is low, the medical services being much under their expectations.

As a result of the analysis, we noticed that from the patients’ perspective, the medical units’

under-financing, correlated to the inappropriate management of the funds is the main cause

of the low level of health services.

The conclusion is the following: if they had the possibility, almost all the interviewed ones

would leave abroad for treatment and medical attendance, the most mentioned countries

being Germany, France, Austria and Spain. These countries are characterized by a health

system which functions according to international legislation. In the World Health Report,

WHO submits for the first time a coefficient of the national health systems’ performances

regarding three main objectives that need to be reached: health improvement; satisfying the

population’s expectations (the way in which health systems react to patients’ expectations); an equal distribution of the financial contribution (Stegăroiu, Ristea et al., 2009).

In order to increase the confidence level over the activities developed by such

organizations, the quality policy needs to focus on the eight basic principles of quality

management:

Medical units’ client orientation, taking into account the fact that the financing

depends on the number of patients. The management must understand the patients’ current

and future needs, satisfy, identify, fulfill and overcome their requirements regarding the

medical services;

Leadership – in the sense of creating and maintaining an internal environment in

which the personnel would become fully involved in reaching the goals;

Personnel’s commitment - the personnel would be provoked to participate to activities regarding the increase of quality;

Process-based approach - the expected result is obtained in a more efficient way

when managing the activities and resources as processes.

System approach to management - gives confidence to all stakeholders on the

effectiveness and efficiency of the unit;

Continuous service quality improvement – it is an objective of any organization as it

leads to obtaining medical performance;



Fact-based decisions making – emphasis on data and information analysis;

Reciprocal advantageous relationships with the producers and beneficiaries of

medical services.

Moreover, the management at the highest level must be sure that the quality policy

corresponds to the organization’s purpose, that the latter includes a commitment of

satisfying the clients’ requirements and of continuously improving the efficiency of the

quality management system, providing at the same time an appropriate framework for

establishing and analyzing the objectives of quality management and being passed forward

and understood in the context of that specific organization (International Standards Office,

2008).

Conclusions

The most important aspect observed during the survey is the necessity of implementing a

quality management system at the level of those organizations which provide medical

services. All the interviewed persons responded affirmatively to those questions referring to

the necessity of applying various measures in order to urgently improve the quality of

medical services and they consider that “the patient orientation” should represent the basic

criterion of any medical unit. Moreover, almost all of the surveyed ones consider that ” the

continuous improvement of health services quality” is a principle which leads to obtaining

performance in the medical field, improving life conditions at the same time.

Quality in the medical field becomes the equivalent of anticipating, identifying and

overcoming the patients’ expectations correlated to the requested medical attendance. The

results obtained as a consequence of applying the medical process are considered to be very important for assessing medical services. From the analysis of the customers’ perception,

based on the questionnaire, we notice that this field’s quality related aspects are extremely

important. The patient assesses the quality of a medical service by taking into account

various variables. It doesn’t refer only to the medical service and the doctor’s abilities, but

it regards the entire context, emphasizing the doctor’s professionalism and competences,

the personnel’s attitude and behavior, its interest in solving the problems he might face, the

period of time necessary for providing the right medical attendance (access time, waiting

period, the amount of time necessary for the actual attendance).

The analysis of the information leads us to the conclusion that we are not able to speak

about a positive opinion of the medical services consumers; therefore, the image of the

medical system is not a favorable one. The Romanian health system always faces losses

which imply high costs for the entire population. By implementing a quality management system, we should be able to keep things under control. Therefore, the Romanian health

units’ management would be able to develop a series of activities in order to realize the

estimated results and to make possible a continuous internal improvement.

Acknowledgments

This work was co-financed from the European Social Fund through Sectorial Operational

Programme Human Resources Development 2007-2013, project number



POSDRU/107/1.5/S/77213 „Ph.D. for a career in interdisciplinary economic research at the European standards”.

References

CoNAS, 2010. The Manual for Primary Accreditation of Hospital (2010-2015) (Unit of

Standards and Accreditation Procedures). Bucharest: Document for internal use, p. 48.

Donabedian, A., 2005. Evaluating the Quality of Medical Care. The Milbank Quarterly,

83(4), p. 692.

International Standards Office, 2008. ISO 9001:2008. Quality management systems.

Requirements. Geneva:ISO.

Luchian, M., 2005. Sanitary Management. Iaşi: “Apollonia” Faculty of Medicine and

Dentistry.

Păuna, C. B. et al, 2007. European Social Model - Implications for Romania. Study no. 4.

Bucharest: European Institute of Romania.

Prejmerean, C. and Vasilache, S., 2009. Study regarding Customer Perception of

Healthcare Service Quality in Romanian Clinics, Based on their Profile. Amfiteatru

Economic, XI (26), pp. 298-304.

Ristea, A.L., Stegăroiu, I., Ioan-Franc, V. and Dinu, V., 2009. Responsiveness of Health

Systems: a Barometer of the Quality of Health Services. Amfiteatru Economic, XI (26), pp. 277-287.

Sârbu, R., Scurtulescu, A.C. and Bucur, C.R., 2007. Quality in higher education.

Amfiteatru Economic, IX(22), pp. 41-46.

Stegăroiu, I., Ristea, A.L. (coordinators) et al., 2009. Distribution of health services

management. Strategies and policies for the distribution of health services. Târgovişte:

Bibliotheca Publishing House.

Vlădescu, C., 2004. Public health and sanitary management. Bucharest: University Book

Publishing House.

AE Sustainable Success in Higher Education by Sharing the Best Practices as a Result of Benchmarking Process


SUSTAINABLE SUCCESS IN HIGHER EDUCATION BY SHARING THE BEST

PRACTICES AS A RESULT OF BENCHMARKING PROCESS

Anca Gabriela Ilie1, Mihaela Maftei

2 and Oana Antonia Colibăşanu

3

1) 2) Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania

3) STRATFOR, United States of America

Abstract The paper proposes to review the main benchmarking criteria, based on the quality

indicators used by the higher education institutions and to present new indicators of

reference as a result of the inter-universities cooperation. Once these indicators are defined,

a national database could be created and through benchmarking methods, there could be

established the level of national performance of the educational system. Going forward and generalizing the process, we can compare the national educational system with the

European one, using the benchmarking approach. The final purpose is that of establishing a

group of universities who come together to explore opportunities for benchmarks and best

practices sharing on common interest areas in order to create a „quality culture” for the

Romanian higher education system.

Keywords: benchmarking, higher education, best practices, quality indicators, quality

culture

JEL Classification: D83, I23, I21

Introduction

The history of the benchmarking theory, methodology and application to practice of its conclusions began in 1981, when Rank Xerox became the target of a direct attack of its

rival competitor, Cannon Company. Rank Xerox Company accepted the challenge

elaborating a new strategy with a significant change in the operating mode of its activity.

The Rank Xerox Company, through its managing director David Kearns, was the first to

formulate a definition of this technique: “a continuous process of measurement of its own

products, services and practices in comparison with the toughest competitors or with the

companies known as industry leaders”. This definition formulated for the first time the idea

of a comparison of the firms not only with their greatest market competitors but also with

other companies from which the interested organization can learn something (Bank, 1992).

Corresponding author, Mihaela Maftei - [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]





In education, the benchmarking method defines both an initial diagnosis and a management tool focused on learning, collaboration and leadership to achieve continuous improvement

of the educational offer (Sârbu, Ilie, Enache and Dumitriu, 2009).

Benchmark system in higher education is an important measuring tool for improving

education systems among Romanian universities as it provides for a comparison of

successful education methods and prepares students for success in the global marketplace.

Most Romanian universities will need to establish benchmark criteria for developing new

quality indicators in higher education system, make many changes as they move toward a

lifelong learning system in which people have access to many types of learning

opportunities and develop strategies for the success of their own goals of a continuous

quality improvement (Sârbu, Scurtulescu and Bucur,2007).

In the field of education, as in many other fields of activity, we can develop three main

types of benchmarking:

internal benchmarking whose object is its internal departments, offices, programs,

faculties etc in order to identify the best practice of a given activity within the same

university, the existing problems and the possibilities to overcome them relying on the

accumulated experience;

competitive benchmarking – a continuous process allowing a university to evaluate

itself in comparison with the existing or the potential competitor universities in the same

field in order to obtain information about the programs, the curricula, the administrative,

teaching and research processes and the results, to compare them with its own results;

generic or functional benchmarking – the potential comparison partner is any

university which has gained the reputation of being excellent within its evaluation (Sârbu,

2006).

In case of a generic benchmarking, gathering information about the best practice is easier. Much international information is available and helps universities benchmark their

performance, both in terms of inputs (unit costs of education and training, student-teacher

ratio, teaching time in learning activities) and outputs (learner assessment) (World Bank,

2004). Traditional measures of educational progress, such as gross enrolment ratios and

public spending as a proportion of GDP, do not capture important dimensions of

benchmark system in higher education. Gross enrolment ratios measure inputs rather than

the achievement of core or other competencies; public spending does not include the

substantial amount of private spending on training in most universities. Traditional

indicators often fail to capture non-formal and informal learning, such as that which takes

place in the workplace or outside the formal education and training system, activities that

are becoming increasingly important. Such measures are underdeveloped (Garlick and

Pryor, 2007).

However, the quality of the educational process cannot be gauged solely on the basis of

some quantitative indicators such as: number of students/teacher, size of classrooms,

laboratories, libraries etc. (Sârbu et al., 2010). There is, in this domain, a range of specific

indicators, among which: the academic and psycho pedagogical competence of teachers, the

capacity to meet social needs and demand, the transfer of moral values towards students;

equality of chances as far as access to education is concerned, level of student satisfaction;



the cultural, ethical and social responsibility of a university; employment and working

conditions provided for staff; the cost the university covers to constantly train staff

(teaching staff as well as auxiliary teaching staff), academic mobility etc. (Fernández,

Fernández and Álvarez, 2007). The same also stands for indicators taking into account the

process initiation, such as: number of books in libraries, number of teachers, number of

buildings and educational spaces, number of computers etc., more than the process

completion (that is results, for instance: number of students working in their domain of

specialization, students’ trajectory in their professional life etc.) (Lueger and Vettori, 2007).

All these reasons sustain the idea of the rethinking of the entirely quality indicators system

in higher education and the development of new complex indicators with a high degree of

an accurate evaluation of the whole activity, which will represent, in the same time, new

benchmarking criteria of the whole academic system.

1. Literature review

The benchmarking method defines both an initial diagnosis and a management tool focused

on learning, collaboration and leadership to achieve continuous improvement of the

educational offer (Stevenson, Maclachlan şi Karmel, 1999). In response to limited

resources, universities made partnerships with businesses, benefiting from marketing

projects, appropriate organizational tools and other methods and techniques designed for

income generation purposes (Clark, 1998).

In their work on benchmarking in Romanian economic higher education, Ilie et al. (2010)

write that for universities, benchmarking is a means of analyzing their internal performance

in comparison with that of other universities, of identifying the highest performing education systems and of collaborating with other universities in order to learn about

successful school improvement measures.

The Martin’s paper (2003) notes that the destabilizing effect of continuing fundamental

transformations in higher education creates the inability of many institutions to cooperate in

the elaboration and application of strategic plans as well in the reviewing and improving

them.

The paper written by McKinnon, Walker and Davis, (1999) provides the benchmarking

process with an unique approach, as it puts in the background some variables as life cycle,

localization, government size within and between universities. Butcher, Howard,

McMeniman and Thom (2002) emphasizes that the universities primary activities put on

the forefront the benchmarking process, referring in particular to professors’ training

programs. Most of benchmarking process history has focused on the statistical data and their application in areas of administrative support, which has limited the benchmarking

between university functions (Urquhart, Ellis and Woods, 2002). Another approach to

higher education's benchmarking is based on the usage of terms such as collaboration,

program of study inclusion, reflection, revision, management and improvement (Butcher,

Howard, McMeniman and Thom, 2002). The paper titled „Primary and secondary

indicators for qualitative evaluation” („Indicatori primari şi secundari pentru evaluarea

calităţii”) (Miroiu et al., 2009) is proposing the elaboration of new performance indicators

to project a benchmarking process for the high education institutions in Romania.



2. Research Methodology

Research on higher education is an object-focused area based on a broad range of

disciplines. The institutional base is often shaky and diverse. Interest in comparative

research on higher education grew in recent years and was reinforced by the community of

higher education researchers in Europe. As it can be conceptually and methodologically

demanding and fruitful, the growing interest could serve as a stimulus for enhancing a

common identity and a growing quality. However, few comparative research designs

represent the ideal type of setting a research agenda of clearly defined hypotheses to be

tested, and if they do so, the study mostly turns out to be too simplistic due to disregard of

the complex context. Rather, most comparative projects are exploratory and most

productive in providing unexpected insight.

Generally, the objective of this study is the elaboration and implementation of a sustainable

model using benchmarking in socio-economic universities in Romania. Through this project we would like to develop a qualitative hierarchical model for the Romanian profile

universities and in the same time promoting the importance of benchmarking as a useful

tool for performance comparison between institutions.

The authors argue that comparative studies on higher education are most fruitful in

destroying conceptual reasoning based on narrow experience; they are a gold mine for the

early stages of conceptual restructuring. They are indispensable for understanding a reality

shaped by common international trends, reforms based on comparative observation,

growing trans-national activities and partial supra-national integration in higher education.

Comparative projects can be regarded as theoretically and methodologically most

promising if they are based on a semi-structured research design, whereby the strengths of

various conceptual approaches in explaining the phenomena are analysed and the researchers systematically deal with the fact that the project is likely to generate surprising

information requiring to restructure the initial conceptual framework.

The research methodology would be based on the complementarities between the

qualitative and quantitative methods. The research process would have two stages: the first

focusing on the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies and the second on the national

profile institutions.

3. Benchmark system in higher education. Concept

The Lisbon strategy adopted at the EC spring summit set a strategic goal for the EU to

become, by 2010 "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the

world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social

cohesion" (APEC/OECD, 2005).

The Lisbon conclusions contained a number of benchmarks and guidelines in the area of

education and training, as well as in other policies areas. The European Commission

thereby made it clear that indicators play an important role in monitoring progress towards

the achievement of agreed objectives. Furthermore, the structural indicators have the

additional function of helping to identify member States which perform well, thereby

making possible the identification of successful policy (European Commission, 2010). In

this sense, indicators might be used as an instrument for stimulating the exchange of

expertise, supporting good practice and inspiring new approaches.



Benchmark system is a critical tool for studying education among the universities because

of some factors (APEC/OECD, 2005):

allows for one university to benefit from the experience of another university;

creates an opportunity for universities and professors to share best practices and

learn from the successes of others;

al a global level, international benchmark system, greatly expands opportunities for

cross-cultural communication and the collaboration of ideas through the internet;

provides model of high performing, as well as rapidly improving, universities to

others who may not possess access to such models in a local education system;

creates a national (or world) laboratory for new ideas and collaboration.

The benchmarking process includes, but is not limited to the following sequence of steps (APEC/OECD, 2005):

From an expert university turnaround group, such as Romanian universities, to

provide technical assistance to identify criteria for selecting benchmark sites; develop

benchmarking protocols and review benchmarking site write-ups;

Examine the national (international) literature on effective strategies for the

universities;

Using the following principal criteria, identify high performing universities with

promising education policies for addressing persistently low performing universities:

- history of national/international high educational performance;

- a comprehensive set of standards or intended curriculum;

- method for systematically identifying consistently low performing universities;

- explicit procedures for reform and improvement of low performers;

- provision of added resources and technical support;

- excellent teach preparation and development;

- monitoring the faculty’s improvement including the availability of formative

evaluations or inspection / assistance teams;

- hold conferences bringing experts to discuss university benchmarking findings and

to seek to generalize to identify superior practices.

To focus our work, we are proposing to concentrate especially on three dimensions that are

of particular relevance for higher education system: human resource management, budget

management and information. Together, these three dimensions can help characterize a

governance system as well as measure its performance (World Bank, 2004).

The recent reforms at the university level determined the need of improving the operational capabilities of universities taking into account the funding diversity that universities count

on today and the increase in quality of educational services at the national level. Taking

into account the European academic preoccupations in the field, the present paper is



focusing on researching ways of improving the university level educational services exploring benchmarking as an useful tool to evaluate the organizational performance. The

paper has, therefore, the following specific objectives:

Raising awareness and increasing scholars’ interest into proposing new evaluation

indicators considering the main trends of the European educational policy (i.e. the degree

that ASE Bucharest is participating in programs and projects that develop further vocational

training). The research that we develop would cover some of the main areas, namely:

Economy, Cybernetics and Statistics, International Economic Relations, International

Affairs, International Trade, Marketing, Finance, Accounting, Economic Informatics,

Management, Computers and technology Information, Law.

Elaborating a system that would collect primary data considering the analysis level

and data relevance (coherence and flexibility). We’ll take into account the primary

indicators: referring to data common to all national institutions of higher education, secondary indicators: data allowing comparisons between higher education institutions

based on specialty and field of study and tertiary indicators regarding the data that allows

comparisons between individual programs developed by universities, taking into account

the specializations and field of study.

The analysis and interpretation of the indicators that are data specific: Input,

Process, Output, Outcome. The input indicators give a measure of institution's resources

(human resources, logistics, financial), the process indicators are a measure of educational,

research and administrative processes, or what is called „the academic counseling services

offer”, the output indicators are measuring the outcomes of the educational, research and

administrative (i.e. number of diplomas awarded, the number of patents obtained or of

published articles), while the outcome indicators are measuring the impact that the higher education institutions have on the society (i.e. the effect on human resources’ market, the

increase in productivity as an effect of the well prepared human resource in a specific

field).

Based around these general and specific objectives, a good program for quality

improvement within the university was seen as comprising the following characteristics

(Garlick and Pryor, 2007):

a clear understanding of the university’s stakeholder expectations in relation to the

specific area targeted for improvement and the environment in which it operates;

goals, policies and procedures that are accessible and understood by all relevant

staff, students and other stakeholders participating in the process of improvement;

a flexible, holistic process to enable active involvement by relevant stakeholders;

measures of performance for the function, with mechanisms for both internal and

external data support, including from non-university comparisons that are consistent with

agreed improvement goals and the changing environment in which the function has to

perform;

an agreed recognition by all stakeholders that practice can be improved;

leadership and commitment from senior management for the drive and the resources

to assist with an improvement program;



evidence that improvement has resulted;

learning that feeds into continuous improvement on a wide scale.

A generic approach to a comprehensive improvement program, comprising initial review,

strategic planning, reflection, action and evaluation is presented in figure no.1. The

underlying principles of collaboration (or connectivity), leadership and learning are seen as

influencing each of these five phases.

Phase 1: Comprehensively reviewing the current situation and environment as it relates to

the targeted function - the purpose of this first phase is identifying the external and internal

factors at work (drivers and impediments), and the way they shape and influence the

present operating environment for the university and targeted functional area. This material

may include: policy and procedure documents; staff, stakeholder and student surveys and

views; staff recruitment programs; budget implications; and wider factors and influences. An analysis of this data may highlight gaps to be filled.

Phase 2: Undertaking a process of strategic planning targeted at improvement - this phase

is envisaged as an inclusive process involving all relevant stakeholders (including those

who are external to the organization) and is initially about sharing understandings and being

comfortable about the future vision – particular goals, language, concepts, culture,

constraints, impediments and opportunities – as it relates to their perspective on matters to

do with the targeted area for improvement.

Phase 3: Self-evaluation and external evaluation, concentrating on three different

directions - the methodological improvement and that of the general guidelines associated

with ensuring the system-wide quality, in accordance with the quality standards at the

European level; the external and internal evaluation of 20 profile universities; building a central database containing criteria, standards and performance indicators to provide

information on the program development status at the institutional level. The database will

be public.

Figure no. 1: Learning for improvement – benchmarking effects

Source: adaptation after Garlick and Pryor, 2007

Phase 4: Assessing the quality of socio-economic higher education, through annual surveys

at the students, professors and other employers’ level on the university services quality and



through secondary data analysis, expressing the experts’ opinion on state-wide quality system. In this sense, there would be a methodological development comprising three steps:

the elaboration of the three types of questionnaires: one for students, one for trainers and

one for other employers, followed by the collection and processing of collected data, and

finally, the reporting on the processed data.

Phase 5: The establishment of indicators of reference, based on the actual need of support

coming from the higher education institutions in developing and implementing effective

internal systems of quality assurance. The specific objective is to elaborate annual

benchmarking indicators able to offer comparison between universities at the specialization

and institutional level.

Conclusions

In the pursuit of achieving this goals, centered around the desire of offering complex and solid based answers, both conceptual and empirical, our research requires the consideration

of some performance indicators that provide comparative data on the performance recorded

by certain higher education institutions in Romania financed by the public budged:

increasing the access to higher education, diminishing the abandonment rate, improving the

outcomes of learning and teaching activities, research results, and level of employment of

the graduates. All of these elements are associated with the increased institutional

autonomy, in terms of a greater transparency and a better management of funds. These

statistical indicators are constructed to provide an objective view on the performance of a

higher education institutions funded by the state budget.

The present paper represents only a starting point in strengthening the institutional

capacities that correspond to the requirements of a qualitative academic service, in line with European standards, in accordance with Bologna model and in close relationship with the

agreements within the Lisbon Agenda.

References

Anderson, D., Johnson, R. and Milligan, B., 2000. Quality assurance and accreditation in

Australian higher education: An assessment of Australian and international practice. EIP Report No. 00/1. Canberra: Department of Education, Science and Training.

Anderson, D., Johnson, R. and Saha, L., 2002, Implications for universities of the changing

age distribution and work roles of academic staff. Canberra: Department of Education,

Science and Training.

APEC/OECD, 2005. International Benchmarking in Education. [online] Available at:

<http://hrd.apec.org/index.php/International_Benchmarking_in_Education> [Accessed

25 September 2011].

Bank, J., 1992. The Essence of Total Quality Management. London: Prentice Hall.

Butcher, J., Howard, P., McMeniman, M. and Thom, G., 2002. Engaging community

service or learning?: Benchmarking community service in teacher education. Canberra:

Department of Education, Science and Training.



Charles, D. and Benneworth, P., 2001. The regional contribution of higher education: A

benchmarking approach to the evaluation of the regional impact of HEI. Newcastle

upon Tyne: Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies.

Clark, B., 1983. The higher education system: Academic organisation in cross-national

perspective. New York: Pergamon.

Clark, B., 1995. Places of inquiry: Research and advanced education in modern

universities. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Clark, B., 1998. Creating entrepreneurial universities: Organisational pathways of

transformation. Oxford: Pergamon.

El-Khawas, E., De Pietro Jurand, R. and Holm Nielsen, L., 1998. Assurance de la qualite

dans l’enseigment superieur: Progres recent et defis a venir. New York: World Bank.

European Commission, 2010. Lisbon Strategy Evaluation Document. [online] Available at:

<http://ec.europa.eu/archives/growthandjobs_2009/> [Accessed 3 October 2011].

European Commission, 2009. Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Jobs. Towards a green and

innovative economy. Brussels: European Commission.

Fernández, S., Fernández, E. J. and Álvarez, A., 2007. University Institutional Evaluation

and Academic Achievement. In: The 2nd European Quality Assurance Forum

“Implementing and Using Quality Assurance: Strategy and Practice”. Rome, Italy, 15-17 November 2007. Italy: Sapienza Università di Roma.

Garlick, S. and Pryor, G., 2007. Benchmarking the university: Learning about

improvement. S.l: Department of Education, Science and Training.

Ilie et al., 2010. Benchmarking – a Sustained Performance Model in Romanian Economic

Higher Education. In: The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, The 17th

Symposium IGWT “Facing the Challanges of the Future: Excellence in Business and

Commodity Science”, Bucharest, Romania, 21-25 September 2010. Bucharest: ASE

Publishing House.

Lueger, M. and Vettori, O., 2007. Flexibilising standards? The role of quality standards

within a participative quality culture. In: The 2nd European Quality Assurance Forum

“Implementing and Using Quality Assurance: Strategy and Practice”. Rome, Italy, 15-

17 November 2007. Italy: Sapienza Università di Roma.

Martin, A., 2003. Universities Quality Agency: 2002 institutional audit reports, analysis

and comment. [online] Available at:

<http://www.auqa.edu.au/qualityenhancement/occasionalpublications/index.shtml>

[Accessed 10 October 2011].

McKinnon, K., Walker, S. and Davis, D., 1999. Benchmarking: A Manual for Australian Universities. Canberra: Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth

Affairs.

Miroiu, A. et al., 2009. Indicatori primari şi secundari pentru evaluarea calităţii.

Bucharest: ARACIS.

Sârbu, R., 2006. Benchmarking As An Alternative To The Internal Audit. In: Faculty of

Commerce, Academy of Economic Studies, The 2006 International Conference on

Commerce. Bucharest, Romania, 27-29 March 2006. Bucharest: Academy of Economic

Studies Bucharest.



Sârbu, R., Scurtulescu, A.C. and Bucur, C.R., 2007. Quality in higher education. Amfiteatru Economic, IX (22), pp 41-46.

Sârbu, R., Ilie, A.G., Enache, A.C. and Dumitriu, D., 2009. The Quality of Educational

Services in Higher Education – Assurance, Management or Excellence?. Amfiteatru

Economic, XI (26), pp 383-392.

Sârbu, R. et al., 2010. The Development of a Unitary Indicators System for Academic

Quality Evaluation, between Desideratum and Necessity. In: "Gheorghe Asachi"

Technical University of Iasi, Romania, through Center for Continuing Education and

Training (CETEX), The 6th International Seminar on the Quality Management in

Higher Education. Tulcea, Romania, 8-9 July 2010. Tulcea: s.n.

Stevenson, S., Maclachlan, M. şi Karmel, T., 1999. Regional participation in higher

education and the distribution of higher education resources across regions. Canberra:

Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs.

Urquhart, J., Ellis, D. and Woods, A., 2002. Benchmarking guidelines for university

technical services. Brisbane: Griffith University.

World Bank, 2004. Benchmarking National Systems of Lifelong Learning. [online]

Washington: The World Bank. Available at:

<http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLL/Resources/Lifelong-Learning-in-the-

Global-Knowledge-Economy/chapter5.pdf > [Accessed 3 October 2011].

AE Good Practices Preceding the Implementation of the System of Management of Environment, on Small and Medium Enterprises


GOOD PRACTICES PRECEDING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SYSTEM

OF MANAGEMENT OF ENVIRONMENT, ON SMALL AND MEDIUM

ENTERPRISES

Anca Atanase1

, Ion Schileru2 and Smaranda Vişan

3

1) 2) 3)Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

The current and future economic context compel to ample reconsiderations related to the

volume and content of the demarches carried out by organisations, in order to face the

competition sharper and sharper and the more and more numerous rigors, among which the

issue of environment is more than imperative.

The good practices in environment management become more and more necessary and,

fortunately, are supplied more and more often by organisations in SMEs category, which

encounter highly valuable solutions in this context charged with convictions.

This work features an exemplary performance of a small organisation that managed to settle

an informal system of management of environment, built up with much rigour,

involvement, respect for society and environment. The objectives of authors consist in offering good practices to business environment, from

SMEs category, means of approaching in the analysis of environment practices and

emphasizing the imperatives in this area of action, for organisations.

The method of research included the consulting of some lists of specialised works,

documentary study in the sites of the organisations from SMEs category and of the

organisations in the field, adopting some established models of analysis (FMEA - Failure

Modes and Effects Analysis), singularised application of method to the data concerning an

organisation from German space.

The results of authors’ demarche were materialised in both theoretical and practical

considerations, presumptively useful for the specialists in the field of environment

management, university environment and business environment.

Keywords: good practices, environmental performance, SMEs, system of management,

quality

JEL Classification: F18, L21, M14

Corresponding author, Anca Atanase - [email protected]




Introduction

In close connection with the existence and purpose of business, an organisation wishes to

have success on market, to have a sustainable development, and the result to involve

economic efficiency, reflected in time saving and reduced costs.

In the current stage, the business environment tends to focus the market attention on those

companies which prove to be able to harmonize the conditions of performance,

environment and safety of activity with those imposed by its own activity. This desideratum

is extremely important for the countries that have to confirm their status of member of

European Union.

In the field of management systems, the statistics performed within the European bodies of

certification presented the fact that the conditions imposed by market focused until

currently on quality, on satisfying as complete as possible and more sustainable the direct

and anticipated requirements of clients, this being the main criteria of competition. The current economic reality imposes, necessarily, the integration of a management system of

an organisation and of the policies and objectives related to environment protection. In this

respect, it must be proved permanently that environment conditions are met and that the

organisations are continuously improved. Consequently, the interested parties must become

more and more aware of the issues imposed by environment protection.

When setting forth the environment objectives, one must consider the major factors which

influence environment. During the assessment, one may determine for which environment

factors is necessary the elaboration of a crisis plan and the taking of some measures of

prevention, respectively which needs regulations by actual disposals.

The risk factors in the activity of a company, important both in terms of environment and of

security, depend on the safety of processes. In management, this is in relation of dependence with the supervision, control of environment influences, real determination of

responsibilities. Thus, regulations and supervisions of processes are necessary, and a

primordial importance have the competences of human factors, the qualification of work

force, both professionally and in terms of the knowledge in the field of environment

protection and safety of exploitation. One shall invest in the work force proportionally with

the risk involved by the activity of each of them in this field. The qualification of work

force must lead to the awareness of the risks of breaching the instructions, as well as of the

gravity of consequences.

The correct interpretation of the requirements of the system of management of

environment, the determination of the influences of environment factors, the assessment of

the effects and environment performance intend to contribute to securing the reliability of

management system.

The purpose of the demarche presented in article is to exemplify and prove that the

identification and evaluation of environment issues and of the impacts on environment,

integrated within a systematic view and applied to the entire system of management serve

both to the improvement of organisation’s image on market and to the prevention of

negative influences on environment.

The preparation of organisations for implementation and certification of the system of

management of environment is a complex duty, since they have to meet not only the



conditions of ISO 14001 standard but also the legal regulations, within a realistic plan of

action.

For an organisation that wishes to have durable success on market, the purpose must not be

the acquirement of certificate, but the skill to propose itself objectives, which it shall follow

and the results of which it shall analyse for improvement of its own performances.

1. Essential aspects concerning the efficient systems of management of environment

The management systems militate in favour of active and involved people, which may

formulate proposals of improvement and reach the objectives of improvement determined.

Consequently, adopting a system of quality or environment management must be a strategic

decision of the management on the highest level of organisation. It must assure of the fact

that in the organisation it manages, operates an organisational culture.

The management staff of the organisation, applying the principles of management,

supervises and analyses permanently the processes, identifies the non-conformities,

analyses the risks and tendencies, proposes corrective or preventive measures, terms of

fulfilment and assures the implementation of these measures, on the one hand, and, on the

other, it checks the efficacy of the actions undertaken and measures the real level of the

objectives formulated.

Applying the principles of quality management not only supplies direct benefits, but it also

brings an important contribution to risks’ management, the efficiency involving in this

respect the management of costs and budgets.

The risks are inevitable, although they are unintentional and unwanted, representing effects

and products of the processes of the system of management.

These undesirable results form the object of the procedure concerning the management of

risks. The risks related to efficacy are materialised under the form of: non-conformities,

respectively impacts on environment, whereas the risks concerning the efficiency under the

form of: costs and budgets. This results in the interest of the managers from the highest

level in the efficient systems of management.

The identification of risks/traps begins with the breakdown of processes in activities which

may be easily planned, kept under control, analysed, whereas the improvement of

performances (effects) is achieved by improving the work manner; frequently, these

activities represent the sources of risks.

Improving the efficacy and efficiency of processes is performed by applying P-D-C-A

methodology (Deming cycle: plan-do-check-act).

In order to be able to perform plans of improvement, the following should be analysed: audit reports of first, second or third part, the results of bench markings, the claims of

clients, the non-conformities of products, according to the legal conditions or the

amendments thereof, the financial performances, productivity, operation of equipments and

human resources within the organisation.

The plans of corrective and preventive actions with improvement role should determine

assignment of resources, the application of principles and of quality management tools, the



data analysis, the determination of priorities, of some new objectives and targets, continuous assessment and identification of tendencies, achieved permanently, intensively

or extensively.

If measures of improvement are drawn up, these must be attached clear responsibilities,

terms of implementation, in order to be possible to check and analyse their efficacy.

However, the staff involved in improvement does not have only responsibilities, but also

authority and associated resources.

The involvement of a higher and higher number of employees in identification-assessment

and prioritization of environment issues represents one of the means by which it may be

assured that the improvement of attitude towards environment becomes a life style for all.

The identification of the opportunities for improvement and the determination of new

objectives and solutions lead to permanent improvement.

Traian Teodoru (2011b) reveals the following stages of the principle of approach based on a process applied to permanent improvement, specific to all systems of management (the

characteristics of which are presented in table no. 1: analysis of problems, risks and

tendencies, selecting the area of improvement and motivating it, determination of the

conditions which define the actual situation, assessing the efficacy and efficiency of the

existent processes; analysis of processes, identification of the causes of non-conformities,

using for instance Ishikawa and Pareto charts; identification of the solutions of settlement

by selecting the appropriate solution and assessing the effects of application of the selected

solution; implementation and standardization of appropriate solution, which provides the

expected results; assessing the efficacy and efficiency of application of the project of

involvement, with a view to potentially extend it as well to other processes of the

organisation.

Table no. 1: Characteristics of management systems

Management system Quality

management

system

Environment

management

system

Informal

Product

Believe in continuity of product manufacturing

- Continuously achieved performance (established work mode = planned processes) on quality, environment (effectiveness)

- Improved, in order to increase stakeholder satisfaction, performance

- Achieved economic, financial benefits (efficiency)

Risk regarding quality environment business

Method of

Product manufacturing

Establishment and implementation/achievement of policies/objectives regarding the products, integrated with those of the company

Risk management

Improving the product

Improving processes by using PDCA methodology

Valorisation of management methods

Standards

References Requirements Guidelines

SR EN ISO 9001:2008

SR EN ISO 14001:2005

SR EN ISO 9004:2010 SR ISO 10014:2007



Guidance SR EN ISO 9000:2006; 10013:2007

SR EN ISO 14004:2010, 14031:2001

Specifications of managerial methods

(Management) Risks

SR EN ISO 19011:2003

The procedure of identification,

control and prevention of nonconformities

The procedure of identification

and evaluation of environmental aspects (environmental impact)

Self-assessment questionnaires

level of maturity implementing basic principles management / key elements sustainable success

SR ISO 31000:2010 – Risk management. Principles and definitions

Source: adapted from Traian Teodoru, 2011b, p. 81

The sustainable success relies on the study of business environment, and permanent

adjustment to it forms the object of the policy of the systems of integrated management.

We synthesize further on the recommended demarches to obtain sustainable success:

assuring a perspective of planning on long term;

constant supervision and periodical analysis of business environment;

identification of all relevant interested parties, assessment of their potential impacts

on business performances and the determination of the manner of fulfilment in a balanced

manner of the needs and expectations identified and classified as such;

constant involvement of interested parties and keeping them informed on its own

activities and plans;

establishing mutual advantageous relations with the suppliers, partners and other

interested parties;

harmonizing in a balanced manner the needs and expectations of the interested

parties;

identification of the risks attached on short/long term and carrying out a global

strategy in order to reduce them;

anticipating the future needs of resources (including of competence for the staff);

determining the proper processes for the performance of business strategy, insuring

that these are able to answer promptly to changing situations;

periodical assessment of conformity to the current plans and procedures;

undertaking appropriate preventive/ corrective actions;

assuring the fact that businessmen have learning opportunities for their own benefit

as well as for the maintenance of business vitality;

determination and maintenance of the processes for innovation and permanent

improvement.



2. Case study: Clemens Härle company, of Leutkirch – Germany

I have selected this case study for the rigour and logic of the demarches supported, and the

stages followed are really useful for those who want to settle and certify the systems of

management of environment, by EMAS (the EU Eco-Management and Audit Scheme) or

ISO 14001.

The company Clemens Härle, of Leutkirch was granted in 2010 the award for environment

of the land Baden-Württemberg from Germany.

2.1 Profile of Härle company

In the company Clemens Härle beer is being manufactured for over 40 years. Several local

manufacturers are in a sharp competition, therefore the quality of beer must be

irreproachable.

The manufacturers fulfil strict standards and norms of quality for food, applied as well to Bavarian beer plants. The raw materials, the malt and barley, are purchased only from

farms controlled by two independent institutions.

The approximately 30 employees of the company Clemens Härle, included in a flexile

organisational chart, are working both in production and sales.

2.2 Preoccupations of company for environment protection

The management is held by Härle family, which, for over 20 years, has been proving a

constant interest for quality and environment.

It is notorious the management commitment for environment protection. A declared

mission communicates the basic traits of the view and purposes of the team. The essence of

the value asserted determines the purposes and responsibilities of the team. When the values and purposes are rooted in the culture of the team, its mission only presents them, so

the parties involved and those interested are ready to act, having a clear understanding of

the context of development of events. The principles generate correct attitudes and

necessary to an increased efficiency, they dictate the manner of action.

A declared and constantly pursued purpose of the company is to perform a continuous

improvement of environment.

The owners wanted to firstly assess by themselves their level and thus they drew up

detailed reports of environment and studies of environment balance annually. Being a

private, family business, they wanted a less formal system, less bureaucratic, less time

consuming, as well as less expensive. For the beginning, they assigned around 4 % of the

turnover for the assessment of environment performance (the equivalent of Euro 30.000 in

1995).

The company had as objective the reduction of the consumption of resources and took in

this respect the following measures: a new boiling system of mash in the factory reduced

the consumption of fuel for heating with 25 %, a system of heat recovery saves annually

around 45.000 litres of heating fuel, the optimization of processes removed the



consumption peaks on electricity, whereas the water consumption was reduced with almost

50% in the last 20 years. The organic waste, resulted from the production processes, is

reused in agriculture.

The support infrastructure consists in utilities for the supply of electric power and water,

treatment of wastewater and return in the emissary, as well as the means for maintaining the

technical equipments and of vehicles.

The finished products are store in the factory until the company carries them to clients

using their own vehicle. All vehicles use organic diesel oil, refined from rape oil.

The problems related to sound solutions were managed by measures of noise reduction. All

these measures were attached independent supervisions, in order to guarantee that noise

levels on neighbouring properties are considerably lower than the legal limits of emission

for noise.

The preoccupations for environment protection are intended to promote the company, being

published periodically in media articles in this respect.

It is remarkable the attitude of the entire team related to transparent communication of its

own performances concerning the environment towards the specialised bodies of control

and the bodies of local public administration.

2.3 Determining the environment objectives

The study of environment balance in Härle Beer Factory involves the annual internal

registration of all ingoings and outgoings of the flows of materials and power of the

company.

The flow of ingoings includes: raw materials, auxiliary materials, packages (emphasizing those materials and packages with significant impact for environment), office and

advertising materials, equipments, water and power, whereas the flow of outgoings

includes: the wastewater, emissions in air, products and waste after production, semi-

finished products, power consumed. These are registered systematically, in terms of a

rigorous calendar, for the entire company, being the basic data for the support of indicators

with a view to assess the environment performance.

The following significant environment issues were identified: water and power

consumption, emissions in the air, effluents of waste water and solid waster, possible

discharges of chemical agents from the cooling system, use of cleaning agents and

disinfectants, purity/quality of water and raw materials.

The water and power consumption counts to a great extent for the costs of production and

thus they are accurately analysed in terms of economic considerations.

The supervision of cooling system, as well as the use of cleaning agents and disinfectants is

related to safety. The health of consumers must be guaranteed by regular supervisions in

order to assure that water and raw materials fulfil the regulations for food safety.

In order to draw up environment objectives, it is thus necessary to identify the significant

environment issues and to assess the impacts on environment, generated by these, in fact to

assess the risks faced by company, in the field of environment.



Pursuant to data analysis, at Härle were identified three areas of action, which generate environment objectives:

conservation of electric power and heat;

orientation towards power sources more friendly with environment;

use of some cleaning agents and professional disinfectants.

The hierarchy of such objectives present a high level of the performances of environment

management and a focus on areas of essential future importance.

2.4 Undertaken criteria

The following tables present the manner of managing at Härle the most important issues of

environment.

Since the management on the highest level is competent to take the strategic decision to

implement a system of management of environment, undertaking the criteria for environment performance (presented in table no. 2) has a major importance.

Table no. 2: Criteria for environmental performance, undertaken by the management

Criteria for environmental

performance

The management point of view

Legal requirements and other requirements

• Appropriate laws of the respective land regarding emissions protection, technical guides for noise, technical guides for regulations regarding air and dangerous substances • Compliance with legal requirements is assessed on regular basis.

Past and present performance Reliable data are available at Härle, since water and energy consumption have been systematically recorded, since 1995

Standards and good practices of management

Although the certification of the environmental management system by EMAS or ISO 14001 is not an objective, their requirements are internally documented in the environmental report.

Data regarding performance, from the industrial organisations

Comparison with other breweries is a "craft tool" in the field of traditional brewing

Scientific research Research results, in so far as relevant for small breweries, are used to determine the company objectives (eg: Beer

manufacturing guide, issued by the Ministry of Environment)

Source: Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN), 2005, p. 13

The assessment of environment factors, mainly in the cases which involve complex

activities concerning the effects on environment, involves team work.

Since sustainable success involves the identification of all relevant interested parties, the

constant involvement of interested parties and keeping them informed on its own activities

and plans, their observations related to the preoccupations of Härle company (presented in

table no. 3) are especially useful.



Table no. 3: Comments from stakeholders regarding the company’s environmental

concerns

Stakeholders Comment

Management representatives, employees

• The company's strategy varies between environmental issues awareness and environmental protection through the personal commitment of the executive director. • As it often happens in small companies, informal communication is preferred to official rules when it comes to employee suggestions • Special meetings on relevant environmental topics are

held by the master brewer and head of supply.

Customers The environmental interests and concerns of customers were identified through targeted, random surveillance actions of the individuals.

Suppliers Discussions with suppliers establishing guidelines for the supply (the quality and source of raw materials, type of

packaging used).

Banks, insurance companies Building confidence through the environmental report.

Control and legislative bodies A regular contact with the authorities is maintained.

Local community A regular contact with those responsible is maintained.

Media (and advertising) • Increasing public interest towards publishing information on environmental activities, giving interviews, reports and dissemination of company information in regional newspapers, national news agencies and magazines specialized in industrial and environmental activities.

Research institutes Active participation in research projects.

Environmental groups and other organisations

Contact and exchange of information with environmental organizations and carrying out activities of common interest.

Source: Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN), 2005, p. 14

2.5 Selection of indicators for the assessment of environment performance of the

company

The environment report of the company presents expressly the objectives of environment

performance at Härle. Most of environment objectives are orientated towards technical and

organisational measures. Where possible, the objectives are expressed quantitatively.

The objectives concerning the power are: qualitative objectives (organizational/ technical):

planning and scheduling the investment in a power and thermal plant and quantitative

objectives (operational processes): improvement of electric efficiency within the entire

company with at least 1 kWh per hectolitre of beer produced in the following three years.

The indicators of operational performance (IPO) derived from production control (for

instance the consumption of water and power) and from the study of environment balance

were selected and used directly in order to check the evolution to the agreed objectives.

The following IPO concerning the significant environment issues, expressed in absolute

values, were compared for environment performance in the last 10 years:

electricity used, in kilowatt hour per year;



diesel fuel used, in litres per year;

heating fuel used, in litres per year;

water consumed, in cubic metres per year.

The absolute values were then related to the number of hectolitres of beer produced. Thus,

it resulted an additional range of indicators related to IPO which were compared as well for

a 10-year term. By this comparison and by the use of a graphical representation, the

amendments in absolute values are easier to understand.

Here are a few examples of such indicators related to IPO:

litres of heating fuel consumed per hectolitre of beer produced;

kilowatts-hour of electricity used per hectolitre of beer produced;

mega joules of natural gas consumed per hectolitre of beer produced;

litres of diesel fuel consumed per hectolitre of total beer produced and other drinks;

total water consumed in litres per hectolitre of beer produced;

drinkable water used in manufacture, in litres per hectolitre of beer produced;

non-drinkable water used for cleaning, in litres per hectolitre of beer produced;

hectolitres of beer produced per cubic metre of water (in order to measure the

efficiency of water use).

2.6 Analysis of data

The balance studies of materials and power needed few months of labour, using both

external consultants and its own staff.

Before the study of environment balance, the data on emissions, waste of materials and on

the losses of heat was not enough relevant. There is few qualitative data on the chemical composition and impact on environment of the materials used. The absent information was

collected from external sources, mainly from suppliers.

An unusual characteristic of data collection at Härle is that the data on the volumes of

ingoings and outgoings is taken not only for the entire process of beer manufacturing, but

for each process separately. This means that it is possible to identify not only the quantity

used from a certain material, but also when and where these substances were used or

manufactured.

The detailed investigations for relevant process indicators involve much work, being very

interested in a detailed assessment of operational performance and thus it will be continued

the collection of data at least for water and electricity consumption for each process.

Theoretically it would be possible to be used the data registered and measured

automatically from the neutralization system to identify exactly the volume of wastewater. This entails less work and it is much more practical to be used a differential calculation



(namely the water used minus the water used in manufacture, there were the error sources

such as pluvial waters are considered).

The necessary time to register the data may be reduced by the use of the lists of verification

which contain the systematization of data sources, including the location and stowing

environment.

The analysis of data related to volumes and quantities indicated differences, since these

were collected differently. For instance: some quantities were measured (water and

electricity), other quantities were known exactly (for instance from invoices and recipes),

whereas other volumes and quantities were calculated (for instance the emissions calculated

from the consumption of fuel); on the other hand, some volumes and quantities were

estimated in terms of the experience, for the processes included in the system of data

collection (for instance the consumption of adhesive for labels).

The assessment of information revealed the constant increase of the consumption of electric

power and the fact that it is significantly higher than in similar companies, this fact being

caused by the manner of use of equipments.

It was determined that, passing from the heating with liquid fuel to that with natural gases,

the emissions of carbon dioxide, nitric oxide and sulphur dioxide could be significantly

reduced.

By analysing the information in the environment balance, related to relevant processes, it

was possible to obtain an overall presentation of the areas where are used significant

quantities of cleaning agents.

The results of assessment were used by the company Härle in the public relations. For

instance, it was organised a press conference which was taken over in regional and national newspapers, as well as on radio.

The environment report was distributed to target clients, to visitors, authorities, power

brokers and interested consumers. The results were also published in the journals of

consumers and in those of environment.

Conclusions and proposals

The current economic situation changes the position of the approaches of companies from

extensive to intensive. Small companies – SME are looking for highly rigorous formulas,

laboriously thought, able to assure the maximum coherence of actions in the field of

environment management, formulas which may be both non-expensive and as simple as

possible, so the report effects/costs to be maxim.

Opposite to public sector’s organisations and even the multinational ones, which possess significant means, distributed by orientated budgets, SMEs usually have limited means, the

success of their actions having to rely on principles of management with few resources,

prudence and care on wide horizons.

One demands analyses of tendencies, analyses of cost and intensive improvements, which

involves a better planning and a management of the resources involved, maximum

concentration, wise judgement and strategy.



On the top of all its preoccupations and efforts, the image of Härle company was improved by winning the prize of excellence in environment, offered by the Ministry of Environment

from Germany, for the year 2010.

The demarche of company represented a new approach for the optimization of processes,

mainly related to the use of water, power and transport, and contributed to the identification

of a few measures of improvement, concerning waste management.

The potential discounts of costs identified, in case of water and power, as well as for some

raw materials, auxiliary and operational materials, showed that it is possible that the indicators

of assessment of environment performance to be related to costs, which suggests the need of

extension of systematic management of costs and over environment costs.

The example of German company may bring advantages to other companies as well and

thus the mediatisation wanted do not bring them only individual benefits, but it offers a

hope formula to other contractors as well.

From the study performed on the company Härle We realise that it didn’t use an established

method to determine and prioritize the environment objectives, respectively FMEA. The

importance and efficacy of this method is emphasized by authors such as Teodoru (2011a),

which drafted a form operable in such situations, Stamatis (2003), which proposed the

formulas for its application in practice, Omdahl (1988) being the one who defined that

„FMEA is a technique used to identify, prioritize and eliminate potential failures from the

system, design or process before they reach the customer”.

Being a tool of risk management meant for designing products or processes, the authors of

the article consider that FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis) method may be

applied successfully in order to select the priorities and to identify the objectives, drawing

up a form similar to table. 4 (Annex 1).

When applying such method, one must consider the work regime: normal, abnormal and of

emergency and the criteria of assessment of impacts using an ordinal scale. We have

selected the following hypotheses: normal work regime, three levels of criteria of

assessment of the impact (extension, gravity, frequency), the scale with three steps for each

criterion. Scores were determined empirically for each of these, as follows: for extension

criterion (punctual = 1, local = 3, general = 5); for gravity criterion (low = 1, moderate = 3,

major = 5); for the criterion of frequency or probability of occurrence (low = 1, average =

3, high = 5). The score (product of the three values) represents the indicator of

consideration of the action followed as being in the situation of representing an

environment objective (value over 27) or only a supervision aspect by operational control

(between 9 and 27) or, respectively, of routine (under 9). For another work regime selected,

the values of indicators vary

References

Deutsches Institut für Normung, 2005. SR EN ISO 14032:2005, Environmental

management - Exemples of environmental performance evaluation. Berlin: Deutsches

Institut für Normung (DIN).

Dinu, V., 2011. Corporate social responsibility – opportunity for reconciliation between

economical interests and social and environmental interests. Amfiteatru Economic, XIII

(29), pp. 6-7.



Härle, 2010. Environmental Commitment. [online] (Updated 30 April 2010) Available at:

<http://www.haerle.de/aktuelles.45.html> [Accessed 4 August 2011].

Kmenta, S., 2002. Scenario-based FMEA Using Expected Cost, A New Perspective on

Evaluating Risk in FMEA. [online] Available at:

<http://www.fmeainfocentre.com/presentations/SFMEA-IIE.pdf> [Accessed 15 July

2011].

Obrad, C., Petcu, D., Gherheş, V. and Suciu, S., 2011. Corporate Social Responsibility in

Romanian Companies - between Perceptions and Reality. Amfiteatru Economic, XIII

(29), pp. 43-55.

Olaru, M., Stoleriu, G. and Şandru, I.M.D., 2011. Social Responsibility Concerns of SMEs

in Romania, from the Perspective of the Requirements of the EFQM European

Excellence Model. Amfiteatru Economic, XIII (29), pp. 56-71.

Omdahl, T. P., 1988, Reliability, availability and maintainability dictionary. Milwaukee:

ASQC, Quality Press.

Schileru, I. and Atanase, A., 2007. Requirements of environmental management for the

goods of future decades, Amfiteatru Economic, [online] Available at:

<http://www.amfiteatrueconomic.ro/RevistaDetalii_EN.aspx?Cod=37> [Accessed 24

July 2011].

Stamatis, D. H., 2003. Failure mode and effect analysis: FMEA from theory to execution.

Second Edition, revised and expanded. Milwaukee: American Society for Quality,

Quality Press.

Şerban, V. and Kaufmann, M., 2011. Corporate Social Responsibility: The Challenge for

Medium Sized Enterprises in the Bamberg-Forcheim Region, Germany. Amfiteatru

Economic, XIII (29), pp. 180-194.

Teodoru, T., 2011a. Quality and Management. Bucharest: Conteca.

Teodoru, T., 2011b. Management systems: from certificates to profit. Bucharest: Conteca.

http://www.haerle.de/aktuelles.45.html



Annex 1

Table no. 4: Risk Assessment Form at Härle Factory

No

.

So

urces

of

en

vir

on

men

tal

issu

es

(Pro

cess

es,

acti

vit

ies,

pro

du

cts

)

En

vir

on

men

tal

facto

rs

Environmental issue

EI

(Cause)

Environmental

impact

(Effect)

Impact

Evaluation

Criteria

Sco

re S

= E

x S

x F

Sig

nif

ican

ce o

f en

vir

on

men

tal

imp

act

NS

F,

SF

, S

FM

Actions Measures

Ex

ten

sio

n E

Sev

erit

y S

Fre

qu

ency

F

ro

uti

ne

op

era

tio

na

l co

ntr

ol

ob

jecti

ves

1

Activities

for

maintenance

and

cleaning the

equipment

and office

Disposal of

detergents containing

sewage, in the local

sewerage

Use of the

sewerage

3 3 3 27 SFM X Supply

biodegradable

detergents with

low foaming

2

Washing of

transport

vehicles

The leak of washing

solutions, dust and

impurities in the

drainage

The presence of

washing

solutions, dust

and other

contaminants in

the drainage

3 1 3 9 SF X Washing the

vehicles at

specialized

units

3 External

internal

lighting

Power consumption Using natural

resources

3 3 5 45 SFM X Using energy

saving

lightbulbs,

moving towards

more

environmentally

friendly energy

sources

4 Packaging

plastic,

glass

The need for

controlled storage,

according to

assortment type

The need to

eliminate waste

at the source

1 1 1 1 NSF X Availability of

space and

storage

conditions

Source: adapted from an idea of Teodoru, 2011a, p. 44

AE Quality Uncertainty as a Barrier to Business Services Development


QUALITY UNCERTAINTY AS A BARRIER TO BUSINESS SERVICES

DEVELOPMENT

Laurenţiu Tăchiciu1

, Vasile Dinu2 and Iacob Kerbalek

3


Abstract

Highly performing innovative business services became important factors of

competitiveness in modern economies, but their potential contribution is severely restricted

by market dysfunctions, as companies reported during previous studies. There is also a lack

of adequate policies partly explained by the fact that the services related knowledge is

underdeveloped and poorly disseminated among decision makers. Having found that

quality uncertainty limit the size of the market and the access of new companies and SMEs

to valuable business services, the authors make a review of existing conceptual models of

service quality assessment; discuss the implications of information asymmetry and explore

with selected service providers the situation in specific industries, as well as the solutions for overcoming the current shortcomings.

Keywords: services’ quality, business services, information asymmetry, knowledge

intensive business services

JEL Classification: L84

Introduction

As services became dominant in modern economies, more concern is manifested among

economists and business analysts about the particularities of services transactions and

services markets. There is still much to do in order to reform the traditional economic

theories and business practices, created for an economy based on manufacturing, in order to

respond to the changing economic structures (Tachiciu and Popescu, 2007). Service quality evaluation appears to be one of the most challenging topics for the scientific literature, and

benefited from a large number of contributors. However, the literature abounds of

controversies, studies that invalidate previous assumptions, warnings about omissions, and

attempts to provide improved or alternate constructs. Due to services heterogeneity, a

significant research effort is dedicated to conceptualizing and measuring quality in specific

Corresponding author, Laurenţiu Tăchiciu - [email protected] *) This paper was first presented as a communication within the 20th anniversary international

conference of RESER, The Resilience of the Global Service Economy, 30 September-2 October, Gothenburg, Sweden.



service industries and categories of service industries, providing in many cases useful insights for market operators. When reviewing the literature a number of characteristics are

conspicuous: (1) most of the research focus on consumer services, while the case of

business to business (B2B) services is overlooked, not to say avoided; (2) most of the

research aims at empowering the service provider in managing quality issues, therefore the

accent is put on psychological and behavioral factors that help service companies to attract

and maintain the clientele, while the value of the service for the customer is considered

only superficially or ignored (Gyimothy, 2000); (3) most of services quality constructs fail

to take into consideration the implications of information asymmetry, despite the fact that

many researchers have investigated the quality of the relations between the service provider

and the customer, due to the co-design and co-production that are specific to services

because of their inseparability and simultaneity.

We believe that more efforts should be deployed toward analyzing the case of business

services quality and eventually designing an instrumental framework for quality assessment

that may contribute at improving market functionality. Various industries depend on

services as intermediate inputs, and raise policy concerns especially regarding “structural

deficits with respect to industries that typically rely heavily on external inputs from

knowledge based services” (Pender, Kaniovski and Dachs, 2000). The authors insist in their

background report for The European competitiveness report 2000 upon the need to

overcome the problem of asymmetric information by specific institutional arrangements

aiming to mitigate the economic effects of uncertain provision of quality, and by a

framework were clients’ creative response will be encouraged. In the same spirit, Peter

Wood is analyzing the so called “London paradox” suggesting that the contribution of non-

science-non-technology based innovation, relying upon the contribution of external knowledge intensive business services, had much higher impact on the success of London

based firms as in the case of other major urban locations from United Kingdom (Wood,

2007), which raises once again the problem of uneven benefits of business services from a

customer's perspective. The Commission Communication on business-related services

(Commission of the European Communities, 2003) acknowledges that “... serious

deficiencies in our understanding of the structure of the services sector and the factors

influencing the growth of services enterprises remain”. In the opinion of the commission

one important reason of such a situation is the fact that “services are difficult to define and

thus to measure”, and we can add that one obvious issue is related to services’ quality

evaluation during the transactions with services. This is especially the case of knowledge

intensive business services. Leung (2004) noted: “More and more analytical approaches are being developed so that knowledge can be included more directly in production functions.

However, incorporating knowledge into standard economic production functions is not an

easy task, as this factor defies some fundamental economic principles, such as that of

scarcity. Knowledge and information tend to be abundant; what is scarce is the capacity to

use them in meaningful ways. Nor is knowledge easily transformed into the object of

standard economic transactions”. Following an exploratory research that we carried out

during 2009 among business services customers we found out a general dissatisfaction

generated first, by the impossibility of the buyer to know in advance what service it will get

and to compare the offers available on the market, second, by a perceived poor quality of

services and third by excessive tariffs compared with the perceived value of the services

(Tachiciu, Dinu and Kerbalek, 2009). All this point to the well-known information



asymmetry specific to service provision relationships coupled with the helplessness to measure service quality.

1. Limits of business service quality evaluation

In the field of service quality assessment one should easily identify the coexistence of

several paradigms. A paradigm is a theoretical construct of any kind which enjoys the

adherence of a significant number of scholars. The expression theoretical construct could

mean concept, model, theory, or any other kind of intellectualization of an object or a

notion (Verstraete and Fayolle, 2005). A paradigm may suffer transformation and may be

replaced by another; “the successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution

is the usual developmental pattern of mature science” as Kuhn (1970) said. As long as the

scientific debate follows several conceptual models, the service quality does not follow the pattern of a mature science, but that of a science being in an on-going clarification process.

Working along existing paradigms, represent “an attempt to force nature to the preformed

and relatively inflexible box that the paradigm supplies. No part of the aim of normal

science is to call forth new sorts of phenomena; indeed those that will not fit the box are

often not seen at all” (Kuhn, 1970).

There are few attempts to classify in a comprehensive manner the conceptual models used

in service quality. Susan Proctor and Gillian Wright (Proctor and Wright, 1998) identify

several such constructs:

Importance-performance models (Fishbein, 1967; Martilla and James, 1977; Cronin

and Taylor, 1994 - SERVPERF model) that are based on the measurement of customers'

perception of the performance of items significant to quality weighted by the importance

given by the customer to each item.

The perceived quality model (Gronroos 1982, 1984, 1993), also known as the dis-

confirmation model, defines the service quality as a measure of how well the service level

delivered matches customer expectations. This model has the merit of considering that the

customer's perspective is dominant, rather than that of the provider. Nonetheless, to a

deeper analysis the model serves at informing the provider better than the customer

Service processes models, initially proposed by Smith and Houston (1983), later

derived in a number of applications based on the measurement of the quality of the

relationships between the service provider and the customer (i.e. Hsieh and Chaing, 2003)

The gap analysis model (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, 1985) also known by the

name of the subsequent quality measurement scale SERVQUAL, according to which

service quality result from a comparison of consumer expectations with actual service performance, while the evaluation is made on both the process and the outcome of the

service delivery.

Haywood-Farmer model

The gap analysis in professional services model



When reviewing the literature a number of characteristics are conspicuous:

Most of the research focus on consumer services, while the case of B2B services is

overlooked, not to say avoided. Possibly, one reason is the higher complexity of the

relationships between the two parties, as figure no. 1 suggests. The number and complexity

of interaction between persons is a very significant difficulty in addressing quality issues in

services as almost all the authors have revealed. Each interaction is subject of a series of

biases related to communication, compliance, knowledge, collaboration, flexibility,

perception, etc. More than this, in business to business relationships there is an institutional

interaction superposed to interpersonal relationships, the nature, significance and influence

of which is difficult to capture, despite the fact that in some cases its presence is obvious, as

in the case of the preference that multinationals’ subsidiaries have for the local subsidiaries

of their mother company service providers. Another issue is that customer's satisfaction used by most conceptual models to measure service quality is itself affected by

organizational aspects, as governance, for instance.

Figure no. 1: Complexity of relationships in business to business service provision as

compared with the case of business to consumer

Most of the research aims at empowering the service provider in managing quality

issues, therefore the accent is put on psychological and behavioral factors that help service

companies to attract and maintain the clientele, while the value of the service for the

customer is considered only superficially or ignored (Gyimothy, 2000);

Most of services quality constructs fail to take into consideration the implications of

information asymmetry, despite the fact that many researchers have investigated the quality

of the relations between the service provider and the customer, due to the co-design and co-

production that are specific to services because of their inseparability and simultaneity.

2. The issue of information asymmetry

There is a large academic literature on the information asymmetry, but its practical implications are still very superficially addressed, exception being made of some so-



phisticated industries as the financial services one. The indifference or ignorance exposed by economic actors and policy makers in relation with the information asymmetry is

bizarre, even more as its market implications are insistently revealed by various scholars. In

his notorious article, “The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market

Mechanism”, George Akerlof (1970) clearly revealed these implications: in markets

characterized by information asymmetry, where sellers tend to have more information than

the buyers, “there is incentive for sellers to market poor quality merchandise, since the

returns for good quality accrue mainly to the entire group whose statistic is affected rather

than to the individual seller”. In this way, bad products drive out of the market the good

ones, and the prices tend to be exaggerated compared to the value the buyer gets.

According to Akerlof this process naturally shrinks the market down to the level of its non-

existence. We, instead, accept the more general statement that information asymmetry severely inhibit the development of an industry.

It is largely accepted the fact the service industries face more asymmetric information than

tangible goods industries (Clark, 1993; Nayyar, 1993; Skaggs and Snow, 2004) and also it

is more difficult to overcome. “Since services are consumed as they are delivered, they are

neither reversible nor returnable. Therefore, warranties covering services are often difficult

to administer. Certification is no performance guarantee. Further-more, when certification

is widespread, it provides no distinct performance signal. Monitoring is often inadequate

because there is information asymmetry between the monitor and the person or facility

being monitored” (Nayyar, 1993). Justifiable, scholars distinguish between service

industries in relation to the grade of information asymmetry. Three categories of services

were theorized: “search” services, when the quality of service can be known before

experiencing it, “experience”, when the buyer can assess the quality only after experiencing the service, and “credence” services which quality cannot be assessed properly even after

they have been delivered (Hsieh and Chaing, 2004). As useful as it may be this

classification has been rarely used in the field of business services, in our opinion, because

of the complexity of the relationships between the service provider and the customer when

both are organizations. Nonetheless, the problems raised by information asymmetries for

the business services market should be addressed, especially in the context of the con-

temporary wave of services externalization.

Last year we did a survey among 180 executives of business services client firms from

Romania. We found a general dissatisfaction about the current situation. The main concern

of respondents was the impossibility of the buyer to know in advance what service it will

get and/or to assess the correspondence of what it is likely to get with the real needs of his company. Many declared that the services they get are of low value but high priced.

Obviously, the main source of concern was the information asymmetry specific to service

provision relationships, coupled with the lack of transparency of the market for services and

its insufficient institutional development and legal coverage. But the most striking aspect -

indirectly revealed during our research - was the almost general incapacity of the client

companies to measure, even ex-post, the value-for-money they got from a business service

transaction.

Recently Rubalcaba, Gallego and Hertog (2010) published an article on market and system

failures in services innovation and they found that information asymmetry is a core issue

from both perspectives. They discuss deeply the implications of information asymmetry in

the context of the European Union economy, mentioning as principal effects - in our



reading - a limitation in demand for services and the lack of incentive for service providers to raise their capabilities and improve the quality of services. Their position show that the

dysfunctions which can be observed on the business services market in transition

economies, many of which are attributed to the weaknesses of such systems by the authors

of a study on small business service firms in Ukraine (Smallbone et al., 2010) are in fact of

a more general nature. Without underestimating the role of soft institutional failures, we

believe that addressing information asymmetry is a priority in exploiting the potential

contribution of business services in raising the overall economic performance.

3. Service quality and market from the perspective of service providers

During our previous investigation, mentioned above, business service customers were

asked to anticipate how will evolve their companies’ purchases of services. The majority of respondents estimate that during the next five years their purchases of services will record a

moderate increase or a relative stagnation. This result confirm to a certain grade the

constraint exercised by information asymmetry on the development of business services'

market in Romania. Clark (1993) believe that each market has a number of in-built

mechanisms which remedy the harmful effects associated with information-related

problems, the institutional arrangements which predominate in particular markets being

dependent upon the trust-producing mechanisms within those markets. Nayyar (1993),

however - as we have shown above -, maintains that information asymmetry between the

buyers and sellers of services remains even after firms take action to reduce it.

In order to understand to what extent service providers are concerned with the need of a

more competitive environment, quality improvement, market conditions and market

perspectives we carried on a number of in depth interviews with managers of local business services providers from Bucharest and Buzau (a medium size town 200 km north from

Bucharest). We took account of the diversity of services industries being particularly

interested in more knowledge intensive services; so, we choose service providers in the

following fields: accounting, computer related services, logistics (third party logistics) and

management consulting.

The interviews were conducted around several common topics:

How well do they know their industry and its dynamics?

What are they doing in order to acquire new clients and how potential customers

select the service provider?

What kind of interaction takes place between service providers and their customers

in the pre-contractual phase when defining the object of the contact according to the needs of the customer?

How important is the price in business services transactions, compared with other

criteria?

What kind of frictions they face more frequently during the execution of the con-

tract?

What is their behavior aiming at improving quality and raising customers’ business

performance?



How often and how easily an unsatisfied customer terminates the contract before end to find another contractor, or switch from a contractor to another for subsequent contracts?

What happens in the post-contractual phase? Are there cases of litigious claims, or

does the service provider maintain a certain kind of relationships with its former customers,

for instance in order to assess ex-post the results (improvements) achieved by the customer

as result of their collaboration?

While detailed analysis of the information gathered from interviewees is done in order to

prepare the hypothesis that will be tested in a new phase by a more comprehensive survey,

a number of aspects could be already of interest at this stage:

In none of the industries considered by our investigation there is no market infor-

mation system in place. Nevertheless, some efforts are done, especially by professional

bodies. For instance, the authorized accountants body provide a classification of accounting firms in relation with certain professional criteria in classes from A to F (the interviewed

companies were classified A and B), the management consultants body publish an annual

report regarding the industry, the logistics professional body publish industry analyses, and

provide information about events in the industry. On another hand business organizations

like the chambers of commerce or third parties publish rankings of companies by sector,

based on their turnover. Discussions revealed that all this information is mostly addressed

and used by the firms in the industry and not by potential customers who either are not

aware about the information or are not interested in it.

Price does not play a significant role in the choice of the service provider. The only

industry where some interest of the customers for price in relation with perceived quality

was reported is accounting. Instead, personal relationships and social networks of either firms’ executives or staff are usually the main instrument in acquiring new clients. The

recommendation by former clients is also frequently a mean to initiate new transactions.

Distinctively, management consultants - in principal - and sometimes computer relegated

services providers have to win competitions to get public contracts or contracts with large

and very large companies that organize procurement procedures. Somehow annoying,

interviewee commented that even in the case of procurement procedures, personal relation-

ships, or the history of former collaboration can weight very much in obtaining the contract.

Apart from occasional participation in competitive tendering procedures, there is no

observable rivalry between the components of selected industries for market share, or

confrontation for acquiring new customers

The structure of the industries is quite different:

- Accounting has the largest market as most SMEs preferred to outsource this activity because of professional responsibility and the difficulty to comply with a very ambiguous

and ever changing legal and fiscal environment. The industry itself consists of a large

number of small firms many of which are owned by a single person or a family. The service

is provided mainly in the same locality. We found no indication of any consolidation trend.

Medium and large enterprises organize the accounting in-house or outsource it to their spin-

offs or specialized companies in the group, so they are not active demand bearers.

- The computer related services industry is split between large and powerful

companies (including their local (national) subsidiaries, dealers, agents or representative

offices that share a market of large and very large contracts, having among their clients the



government, banks and other financial institutions, multinationals and other large companies, and a large number of small enterprises that serve the SMEs market with

customized, less expensive and less demanding solutions. The two strategic groups of

enterprises do not interfere, apart from occasional collaborations, mainly in the form of

subcontracting.

- The management consulting industry is heavily dependent on government contracts

or transactions in the context of the preparation of projects founded with EU funds. Another

component of the demand side of the market is represented by local branches of

multinationals and very large (state owned) enterprises, but is apparently reserved to well

reputed brand names, as the “big four”, for instance. When the brand is not the decisive

criterion in selecting the service provider, personal relationships will be the most important

instrument in obtaining a contract. When the object of the contract involves the preparation of an application for funds, having the right relationship within the founding institution can

be an advantage. Occasionally, the history of collaborations between the customer and the

consultant can also be an important criterion. “They know they have no problem with me in

doing this job, so they will select me every time for it” said one interlocutor. The genuine

demand for management consulting services from domestic medium and large enterprises,

mainly related to mergers and acquisitions, is not significant. Actually, among selected

industries, management consulting firms face the highest pressures. First because their

market lack a natural dynamics; second, because firms that started in other industries

(accounting, auditing, computer related or legal services) tend to diversify by providing

management consulting services and third, because of business support services provided to

SMEs by noncommercial actors (NGOs, universities etc.).

- The third party logistics industry is in an infant stage in Romania, driven by foreign direct investment. There are very few companies serving mainly large distributors.

From interviews we understood that quality is not a day by day preoccupation for

business service firms, but merely is treated more as a formal issue. For instance all the

interlocutors declared that they comply with industry standards, either formal or informal.

In some cases they have to comply with professional standards as required for practicing

the business; this is especially the case of accounting. Some others are seeking a

certification as a sign of capability, despite the fact they are skeptical about the market

sensitivity to it. It is the case of management consultants and logistics experts who can

individual get a professional certification issued by their professional bodies, or the

computer related service providers (for example Microsoft Certified Company).

Significantly, consultants are working to create a “standard for selecting management consultants” in order to stimulate the demand to discriminate between consultants on more

objective criteria. All the interviewee are familiar with quality management systems

standards ISO 9000 series, but none of them is aware about services quality assessment

models as SERVQUAL or SERVPERF.

Very interestingly, the cases experienced by service providers when a client will

switches to another provider are accidental and quite exceptional. In the case of accounting

and computer related services, most of their clients were acquired at the beginning of their

activity, 10 to 16 years ago, and only very few new clients are added each year in their

portfolio. They see this situation as an indication that the clients are satisfied with the

quality of the service. In reality, as many of their customers did not have any experience

with another provider, and have no market information readily available, or capacity to



assess the service quality in relation with its price, we understand that the switching cost is very high, as a sign of a dysfunctional market.

The information asymmetry is influencing the relationships of service providers with

their customers in various ways. Interviewees believe that it is a source of unjustified and

unrealistic expectations from their clients. For instance, many clients expect that their

accounting firm provide them financial management and fiscal advice which is not part of

the contracted service, but it is unclear if the client understands it before, or after agreeing

the price and signing the contract. In the case of computer related services frequently the

client expect advice in operations management issue while the provider often considers that

this exceed his obligations. From management consultants customers also expect advice in

legal matters. By another hand, such situations incited service providers to diversify their

activities in order to better exploit the customer portfolio, instead of developing collaboration with specialized firms. We may assume that in many cases this diversification

is realized - at least at beginning- at the expense of the quality and implicitly at the expense

of the customer. A very important and somehow counterintuitive finding from interviews is

that the learning process during contract establishment and execution is usually very limited

in practice on both parties This raises a very serious concern about the prospects of the

markets under scrutiny. We were expecting that better informed customers will become

more exigent making better decisions and service providers will become more innovative

trying to cope with the evolving needs of their customers. We found no signs that this really

happens.

Service providers consider that they have no responsibility for the results in terms of

value for the client company. Even third party logistics companies that are proud to declare

that their services contribute at reducing the cost of their customers do not seem to be preoccupied of whether or not the result is slightly better or the best. We found only one

example of performance based pricing, in the case of consultants. Smaller consultancy

firms were obliged by market pressures to accept performance pricing for their assistance in

preparing funding applications, and this practice tend to be generalized for this kind of job.

In our assessment this kind of arrangement still does not solve the issue of equitable

distribution of the risk between the service provider and the client company. Because the

client is unable to assess the quality of the service, the service provider has the possibility

to limit its effort close to the value of the retainer, thus taking no risk for the case in which

the application is not successful.

Overall, from interviews we got confirmation of market dysfunctions generated by

information asymmetries in several business services industries. The degree of information asymmetry vary from an industry to another, management consultancy having the

characteristics of a credence good while the other service correspond better to the definition

of experience goods. Quality in general and quality evaluation does not seem to be a major

concern for service providers. Only among management consultants - that face the highest

market pressures - we found a certain understanding of the need of a more functional

market, in which customers will be able to choose providers based on proven capabilities

and results against price.



4. The challenge of creating a sound business services market

In particular in the field of knowledge intensive business services, better informed public

policies and public intervention are justified in order to correct market and system failures

that lead to under-exploitation of their potential contribution at raising the economic

performance (Rubalcaba, Gallego and Hertog, 2010). As the case of management

consulting industry demonstrates, increasing rivalry among suppliers by adequate

regulatory and institutional measures may determine the industries to undertake voluntarily

a significant part of the effort toward a more open and competitive market. The academic

world should be encouraged to intensify its efforts in producing robust knowledge

conceptual means and analytic tools to address sector specific needs, as well as in

disseminating knowledge in society.

The development of a sound business services market is in the interest of the economy, and therefore deliberate actions should be taken to put in place a framework that will increase

market transparency, will stimulate an authentic competition between service providers and

will reduce the risk of adverse selection and moral hazard.

In our view, the envisaged framework should combine regulatory and self regulatory

instruments, public and private initiatives and institutional capacities, horizontal and sector

specific actors and mechanisms. It will also encompass the pre-contractual, contractual and

post contractual phases of the transaction, or, in other words, the provider selection, the

contractual terms, the service provision, and the clearance of duties and rights between the

provider and the client.

When developing such a framework, several desiderates must be considered with priority:

Market information availability. Market information helps market actors in making

informed choices, and in measuring ex-post their results against what would be expectable in specific conditions, or against the best performances. Market information is a public

good (difficult to exclude some users, little profitable for private sector to invest in its

supply), therefore it is legitimate for the Government to undertake its provision. As Akerlof

(1970) noted “It should also be perceived that in these markets social and private returns

differ, and therefore, in some cases, governmental intervention may increase the welfare of

all parties”

Standardization. Standardization permits actors to compare offers starting from a

common minimum level of service quality and increase market transparency. Especially in

the field of business services standardization is far less developed as in the case of tangible

goods.

Certification and rating. Independent certification bodies and rating agencies could bridge the information gap

Transparency of service providers' cost structure should represent an effective barrier

against moral hazard. One way to increase transparency of the cost structure is to improve

the invoicing mechanism.

Performance based pricing. Enlarging the utilization of performance based pricing

(for instance, a combination of fixed price and success fee) should be an incentive for

service providers to make the best efforts in the interest of their clients. It will also be an



incentive for service providers to provide relevant knowledge to their clients, as in the case of services the final performance depends on co-design and coproduction.

Effective market supervision and redress instruments. Public bodies and sector

professional associations should cooperate in ensuring trustful and in time enforcement of

the established market rules, as well as equitable remedies when a party experiences a loss

because of the other party’s fault.

Concluding remarks

As the modern economies are dominated by services, the well-functioning and development

of services’ markets is crucial for the socio-economic progress. Not only services have a

major contribution to GDP and employment, but also they decisively contribute to the

competitiveness of the other sectors. In this context, business services, and in particular the knowledge intensive ones deserve much more attention from the business community and

policy makers. The economics and business literature has drawn the attention to the

problems encountered in the development of the business services industries due to quality

uncertainty and information asymmetry, but a practical reaction from public authorities and

market players keep expected still.

The present paper shows that the existing conceptual frameworks of service quality

assessment are led by the interest of the supplier and partly inadequate for business

services, thus being unable to play a role in market signaling. They also fail to properly

address the issue of information asymmetry. The information asymmetry favors adverse

selection and moral hazard, diminishes the market confidence and severely restricts the

market development, which otherwise could bring higher benefits for everybody. We argue

that policy makers and the business community should undertake coordinated and deliberate actions in order to improve the business services market framework and we

enumerate six priority desiderates in building such a framework.

Rather than providing a solution, our primary goal is to animate the debate on a subject that

we consider to be of a major importance for the nowadays economies.

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by CNCSIS – UEFISCDI, Project number PNII – IDEI

1858/2008 “Management Control in the Sustainable Development of the Human

Ressources”

References

Akerlof, G.A., 1970. The Market for “Lemons”: Quality Uncertainty and the Market

Mechanism. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 84(3), pp. 488-500.

Clark, T., 1993. The Market Provision of Management Services, Information Asymmetries

and Service Quality; Some Market Solutions: an Empirical Example. British Journal of

Management, 4(4), pp. 235-251.



Commission of the European Communities, 2003. Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee

and the Committee of the Regions - The competitiveness of business-related services

and their contribution to the performance of European enterprises COM(2003 747

final). [online] Available at: <http://eur-

lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2003:0747:FIN:EN:PDF>

[Accessed 1 September 2011].

Glavan, M., Dumitru, M. and Dumitrana, M., 2009. Empirical Survey Regarding the

Quality Costs in the Romanian Services Companies. Amfiteatru Economic, XI(26), pp.

393-401.

Gyimothy, S., 2000. Service Quality: A Self-Perpetuating Concept?. Journal of Quality

Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism, 1(2), pp. 31-57.

Hsieh, Y.-C. and Chaing, S.-T., 2004. A study of the Impacts of Service Quality on Rela-

tionship Quality in Search - Experience - Credence Services. Total Quality

Management & Business Excellence, 15(1), pp. 43-58.

Kuhn, T.S., 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 1st ed. Chicago: University of

Chicago. (published 1962). 2nd ed. reprinted in the International Encyclopedia of the

Unified Science.

Leung, S.K.C., 2004. Statistics to measure the knowledge-based economy: The case of

Hong Kong, China. [online] Available at:

<http://www.unescap.org/stat/ict/ict2004/18.Statistics_to_measure_the_Knowledge-

Based_Economy-Hong_Kong.pdf> [Accessed 14 September 2011].

Nayyar, P.R., 1993. Performance Effects of Information Asymmetry and Economies of

Scope in Diversified Service Firms. The Academy of Management Journal, 36(1), pp. 28-57.

Olaru, M., Dinu, V. et al., 2010. Responsible Commercial Activity Of SMEs And Specific

Values Of Sustainable Development In Terms Of The European Excellence Model.

Amfiteatru Economic, XI(27), pp. 10-26.

Pender, M., Kaniovski, S. and Dachs B., 2000. External services, structural change and

industrial performance, Enterprise DG Working Paper, Background report for "The

European Competitiveness Report 2000". s.l.: The European Commission.

Proctor, S. and Wright, G., 1998. Mission Impossible? Making Sense of the Key Debates

in the Service Quality Literature. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 6(1),

pp. 3-29.

Rubalcaba, L., Gallego, J. and Hertog, P.D., 2010. The case of market and system failures in services innovation. The Service Industries Journal, 30(4), pp. 549-566.

Skaggs, B.C. and Snow, C.C., 2004. The Strategic Signaling of Capabilities by Service

Firms in Different Information Asymmetry Environments. Strategic Organization, 2(3),

pp. 271-291.

Smallbone, F., Welter, F., Voytovich, A. and Egorov, I., 2010. Government and

entrepreneurship in transition economies: the case of small firms in business services in

Ukraine. The Service Industries Journal, 30(5), pp. 655-670.

Tachiciu, L. and Popescu, N., 2007. Services and economic performance in Romania.

Policy implications and recommendations. In: RESER, The XVII International RESER



Conference, Service Competitiveness and Cohesion - Balancing Dynamics in the Knowledge Society. Tampere, Finland, 12-15 September 2007. Tampere: Unit for

Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, TaSTI, University of Tampere.

Tachiciu, L., Dinu, V. and Kerbalek, I., 2009. The Intermediate Consumption of Services:

an Exploratory Survey among Romanian Enterprises. In: RESER, The XIX

International RESER Conference, Public and Private Services in the New Global

Economy. Budapest, Hungary, 24-25 September 2009. Budapest: KOPINT-TARKI.

Verstraete, T. and Fayolle, A., 2005. Paradigmes et entrepreneuriat. Revue de

l'Entrepreneuriat, 4(1), pp. 33-52.

Wood, P., 2007. Service Competitiveness and Urban Innovation Policies in the UK: the

Implications of the “London Paradox”. In: RESER, The XVII International RESER

Conference, Service Competitiveness and Cohesion - Balancing Dynamics in the

Knowledge Society. Tampere, Finland, 12-15 September 2007. Tampere: Unit for

Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, TaSTI, University of Tampere.



THE DEVELOPMENT OF TOURISTIC SERVICES THROUGH INDIVIDUAL

AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING. STUDY CASE: ROMANIA AND SPAIN

Dan Popescu1, Iulia Chivu

2, Alina Ciocârlan-Chitucea

3 and

Daniela-Oana Popescu 4

1) 2) 3)4)Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

The present research aims to establish and to design the development strategies for services

in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that activate in the tourism field of activity

(hotels and other accommodation establishments, restaurants, passenger transport, travel

agencies, cultural tourism agencies).

Organizational learning is focused on the learning process in the organization which has

direct influence on the goods and services produced. Learning activities, carried out individually, are not easily transferred at the organizational level.

Moreover, in order to better highlight the weaknesses and the strengths of touristic services

management approaches and to define recommendations, our research theme is developed

as comparative study: similarities and differences within SMEs touristic services and

learning organization practices in Romania and other European Union’s country members

(the example of Spain was considered).

Keywords: services, tourism, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), organizational

learning, human resources

JEL Classification: M3, M31, L81

Introduction

Our goal is to identify and formulate proposals aimed to improve the SMEs activities and

performances from the perspective of the touristic services, as we believe this situational

context represents a scientific and practical challenge.

We have chosen the services area for our investigation as it has gained a permanent role

within SMEs (Beardwell and Holden, 2001, pp.272-273), agencies and nations,

increasingly not only as an academic discipline, but as a central theme in the development

area (Popescu et al., 2010, p.49). Behind SMEs performances there are human resources

(Vasiliu, 2009, pp.83-93). Being a combination of individual and organizational learning, in

Corresponding author, Alina Ciocârlan-Chitucea - [email protected]


AE The Development of Touristic Services through Individual and Organizational Learning. Study Case: Romania and Spain


a broad context of adequate human resources policies (Sutherland and Canwell, 2004,

pp.163-168), the development of services ensures the continual improvement and growth of

both individual and organization. Furthermore, a new period of human civilization appears,

a superior way of life, which involves intensive utilization of information in all areas of

production and consumption, involving the human factor as producer and consumer, having

an important economic and social impact (Petrescu et. al., 2010, pp.267-285).

SMEs represent the most numerous and important category of enterprises, with multiple

economic, technical and social functions (Popescu et al., 2010, p. 51). SMEs are the most

dynamic and vital factor of progress in the contemporary society, main generator of

economic performance and substance in any country, major contributor to the national

budget, and engine to improve the living standard of the population. The rights and goodwill of consumers are more and more important, especially within the present

economic climate (Dinu, Marchevski, Dobrescu and Petrescu, 2010, pp.709-710), and

SMEs are drawing up the main human resources agglomeration. Furthermore, SMEs

generate the most of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in every country - usually 55%-95%,

provide employment for most of population.

In the context of The European Union forming a group of countries with the most intense

concerns and performance in supporting and encouraging SMEs, globalization involves an

uniformity of managerial practices and organizational behaviors (Yamnil, McLean, 2001,

pp.195-208), which are in an incipient way for SMEs in service sector (Olaru et al., 2010,

pp.10-26). This is an additional a reason to adopt a comparative approach of HRD from EU

countries.

Investigating the correlation between managers’ approach to motivating the human resources and organizational activity performances represents the start-up of a research that

could lead us to results to be developed afterwards. For instance, the influence of superior-

trained and well-motivated human resources on the SMEs outcomes can be extended to the

influence upon the tourism domain and the economy service sector.

The main objective of the paper: The present paper aims to analyze, the managers opinion

regarding the compatibility between positively motivated employees, using individual and

organizational learning, and the development of SMEs services.

Secondary objectives of the paper:

to set-up an economic interpretation for motivated employees (positively or

negatively), considering the similarities and differences between European Union’s country

members;

to establish in what measure positively motivated employees can provide a

competitive advantage for the Romanian and Spanish SMEs.

1. Hypothesis of the research

Three main hypotheses were formulated relevant to the role of human resources motivation

and development in SMEs on one side, and sustainable economic performance on the other

side. Based on the previously mentioned objectives, the research hypotheses are:



Within the organization, employees represent an important, strategic resource, main creators of economic added value and economic performance. The rise of the service

economy, the increasingly flow of global information, and the growing recognition of the

importance of intellectual capital are turning employees knowledge and abilities into a key

resource and a source of competitive advantage for the organizations in the global

economy.

Based on the human resources management practices, SMEs managers could

support the compatibility between positively motivated employees and superior

performances of the enterprises they belong to.

Within the contemporary economic context, SMEs development and performance

can be achieved by human resources development programs and concerns, through

learning activities and knowledge-based activities, especially if we consider that learning organization:

- depends on the employees education level and on the facilities employees have at

their work place;

- can take place in the organization (indoor development) or outside the organization

(outdoor development).

In order to test these three hypotheses, as a continuation of a research started in 2000,

connected to SMEs birth rates and death rates, a number of 117 managers and

entrepreneurs were interviewed. The results of these interviews were analyzed in the

following empirical part of our paper.


The methodology used is a logical consequence of the research questions applied within the

survey, representing a first step in choosing the qualitative/quantitative approach. For our

research, the key question is: In what measure managers from the SMEs that activate in the

field of tourism consider that positively motivated employees determine highly

organizational performances?

We have chosen the qualitative path as it refers to managers opinion upon employees

motivation-employees performance connection.

2.1 Size and structure of the sample

Acknowledging the importance of HRD and SMEs performances, we realized a study on a

sample of 117 respondents that belong to SMEs from tourism domain: Accommodation,

Restaurants, Passenger Transports, Travel Agencies and Cultural Tourism Organizations, from different regions of the two countries taken into consideration, measuring 19

variables. The results are based on a study performed in September and October 2010 in

different regions of two EU members (Romania and Spain) and confirm the research

hypothesis regarding HRD and its contribution to SMEs performances.



Research design

In underlying the research, we have taken into consideration the numerous answers

received from the 117 respondents. Each question was formulated in order to answer,

directly or indirectly to the research hypothesis. The questionnaire includes general, easy-

to-answer, closed questions, in order to make the tasks easier for the respondent. A second

part is reserved to issues regarding the SMEs profitability and economic performances

(Howell and David, 1997, 120-129) and the third part refers to human resources

performances. The main purpose of the research is strongly connected to the answers

received from the second and third part of the questionnaire.

The first questions (1-6) are indirect ones, related to the purpose of the research. They refer

to the organization’s size, tradition and other factors that may influence the basic features of the organization’s dimension and activity. Their purpose is to fix the analyzed entities

into a specific, determined area of investigation (Eurostat, 2011). In this context, we

appreciate that, basic factors as market experience, number of employees or field of

activity, may influence, in different ways, the quality and the work results of the

employees.

The second part (questions 7-14) aims to get indirect answers in order to establish human

resources work outcomes within the organization (expressed by the productivity evolution).

Third part of the questionnaire (questions 15-20) is directly related to human resources

practices (which is the managers opinion about the motivation alternatives) and to material

and non-material stimulants and facilities given to employees.

First, the authors obtained the validity of the questionnaire on core values employed in this

study. The initial version of the questionnaire was sent as a pilot survey to Spain SMEs in order to ensure the accuracy of questions relative to the core values. After completing the

questionnaire, feedback was asked to managers for improving questions precision.

Afterwards, a revised version of the survey was sent to Spain and Romanian SMEs.

2.2 Statistical Instruments

The data was analyzed using Statistical Packages for Social Scientists (SPSS) 16.0 and

yielded multiple results that are presented synthetically in the present paper. Therefore, the

most significant results are highlighted, with a focus on the profile characteristics, and the

detailed secondary correlations (Cohen, 1988, pp.81-95).

Work method: Primary data, through structured questionnaire, were collected from a

sample of 117 respondents (response rate of survey: 56,80%), randomly selected from among the SMEs engaged in tourism types of activity. The survey elaborated by the

researchers group consisted of 20 items. The research adopted a survey method to collect

data on the SMEs general characteristics (field of activity, form of propriety, market

experience, geographical position, legal form of organization), organization performance

(turnover and profit evolution, tangible assets contribution, average number of services,

organization’s turnover structure, first three clients and suppliers importance), human

resources performance (employees level of motivation, education, average number of

training days, average wage, facilities for employees) (Mintzberg, 2004, pp. 87-89).



Descriptive Mathematics

We have obtained the main values of the research by applying the weighted mean and by

respecting the frequency distribution imposed by the questionnaire answers alternatives.

n

i

iinn vn

nn

vnvnvnx

1

2211 1... (1)

Because of the SMEs classification criteria, the data obtained differs significantly, so we

have calculated partial means for every type of collectivity. Partial means are also called

glisant means or mobile means, used for large fluctuations in the values string, when is

difficult to calculate the tendency. The calculation is made considering a number of m

closed values (Levin, 1999, pp.35-42).

m

xxxxxx iiiii

mglis

2112

,

(2)

The standard deviation (σ) is calculated as squared mean of all series elements deviations

from the main value.

σ =

n

xxi 2

(3)

This indicator is relevant for applying the square lift. A greater importance to absolute

value deviations is given, which influences, in a higher way, the deviation degree of the

analyzed variables.

The variation coefficient (v) is calculated as a report between the standard deviation and the

arithmetic mean. The values of this indicator are subunit ones (Levin, 1999, pp.50-56).

v = 100x

(4)

The closer to zero the value of v is, the less the value of the variance is. Furthermore, the

collectivity is more homogeneous and the degree of representativeness is higher. The

bigger the value of v is, the larger the value of the variance is. As a consequence, the

collectivity is less homogeneous and the degree of representativeness is smaller.

3. Results of the study

From all 117 respondents, 86 are from Romania and 31 are from Spain. Both for countries,

the micro and small enterprises (less than 49 employees) number is higher than medium

ones (more than 50 employees), due to the fact that their number (as a general tendency) is

smaller and, also, due to contextual barriers (the access for organizing an interview may be

more reduced).

All organizations that have participated to the survey were classified into two main

categories, according to the size criterion: small enterprises (0-49 employees) and medium



enterprises (more than 50 employees). As we expected, the survey demonstrated that the

majority of the answers came from the small enterprises. The success for the tourism

business is based on human component and, especially on the level of human involvement

in providing touristic services (Costică et al., 2008, pp.136-141).

Encouraging harmony and work comfort by giving equal material advantages to employees

(bonuses, prizes, professional and leisure facilities, agreeable work climate) is a

management practice in SMEs (table no.1). Comparing the two set of results (Romanian

and Spanish SMEs), the first information is that both Romanian and Spanish managers do

not agree to identical type of motivation for different employee performances. Meanwhile,

within Spanish SMEs the attitude towards this hypothesis is rather uniform distributed

between neutral, agree and strongly agree alternatives, Spanish managers tend to agree (more than 60% of the respondents from all types of touristic organizations). This indicates

a general concern of the managers to different approaches of personnel motivation

according to distinct performance levels. The questionnaire results infirm hypothesis 1 and

sustains the human resources complex approaches within SMEs from a service field of

activity.

Table no. 1: Hypothesis 1 of the research (%)

ROMANIA

Accommodation Restaurants Travel Agencies Others

Company

size

Small

enterpris

es

Strongly

disagree 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Disagree 1.50 0.00 0.00 0.00

Neutral 6.70 10.72 26.00 13.00

Agree 77.20 83.50 65.00 74.00

Strongly agree 14.60 5.78 9.00 13.00

Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

Medium

enterpris

es

Strongly

disagree 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Disagree 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Neutral 5.80 5.30 3.10 2.00

Agree 86.40 91.30 88.70 98.00

Strongly agree 7.80 3.40 8.20 0.00

Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

SPAIN Accommodation Restaurants Travel Agencies Others

Company

size

Small

enterpris

es

Strongly

disagree 0.00 2.10 0.00 0.00

Disagree 2.90 4.00 6.10 0.00

Neutral 43.00 35.00 23.20 0.00

Agree 28.40 51.30 38.30 0.00

Strongly agree 25.70 7.60 32.40 100.00

Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

Medium

enterpris

es

Strongly

disagree 1.00 n.a. n.a. n.a.

Disagree 7.40 n.a. n.a. n.a.

Neutral 39.50 n.a. n.a. n.a.

Agree 43.80 n.a. n.a. n.a.

Strongly agree 9.30 n.a. n.a. n.a.

Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

Source: exploratory survey performed in September-October 2010



Not offering any supplementary advantage to employees, except the wage could generate the same organizational performances, as no employee would have the tendency to leave

his working places, given the difficult present economical and social conditions (table

no.2). The global economic crisis also affected the tourism domain. This fact is confirmed

by the managers’ answers related to supplementary motivation elements for their

employees: as for Romania and Spain, most of the answers correspond to neutral, agree and

strongly agree alternatives. Being aware of the lack of alternatives of their employees,

managers do not concern seriously about special types of motivation and act mostly guided

by predetermined arguments: employees do not have any alternatives for leaving the job, so

there is no need for management to make special effort in human resources motivation.

This types of managerial behavior confirms hypothesis 2.

In order to achieve a competitive advantage, SMEs need to be able to learn faster than their competitors and also develop a responsive culture (Richman-Hirsh, 2001, pp. 105-120). In

light of these pressures, modern organizations need to maintain knowledge about new

products and processes (Wells and Schminke, 2001, pp. 135-158), understand what is

happening in the outside environment and produce creative using the knowledge and skills

of all employed within the organization. This requires co-operation between individuals and

groups, free and reliable communication, and a culture of trust (Yamnil and McLean, 2001,

pp.73-84).


ROMANIA

Accommodation Restaurants Travel

Agencies Others

Company

size

Small

enterprises

Strongly

disagree 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Disagree 18.20 32.80 29.70 0.00

Neutral 19.80 8.70 11.30 0.00

Agree 34.20 25.80 30.00 0.00

Strongly

agree 27.80 32.70 29.00 100.00

Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

Medium

enterprises

Strongly

disagree 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Disagree 8.30 5.40 6.50 34.60

Neutral 12.40 14.00 23.00 13.00

Agree 56.30 45.60 57.00 20.00

Strongly

agree 23.00

35.00 13.50 32.40

Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

SPAIN Accommodation Restaurants Travel

Agencies Others

Company

size

Small

enterprises

Strongly

disagree 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Disagree 3.90 13.40 20.00 0.00

Neutral 45.00 23.00 29.00 0.00

Agree 23.00 36.00 34.00 80.00

Strongly

agree 28.10 27.60 17.00 20.00

Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00



Medium

enterprises

Strongly

disagree 0 n.a. n.a. n.a.

Disagree 9.2 n.a. n.a. n.a.

Neutral 16.1 n.a. n.a. n.a.

Agree 29.4 n.a. n.a. n.a.

Strongly

agree 45.3 n.a. n.a. n.a.

Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00


Stimulating competition between employees and giving them material and immaterial

advantages, according to their work results is the best way to high organizational

performances (table no.3). Answers to questions related to hypothesis three of the research,

indicates a active preoccupation of managers for rewarding employees after the work effort

was made and economic performances were registered. According to the managers’

answers, more than 85% of all types of the questioned enterprises choose to motivate their

employees according to their previous performances. Hypothesis 3 is confirmed.


ROMANIA

Accommodation Restaurants Travel

Agencies Others

Company

size

Small

enterpr

ises

All Equal 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Almost Equal 1.20 4.00 3.00 0.00

Neutral 0.60 3.80 0.50 0.00

Depends on

performances 95.30 89.20 92.50 100.00

Different 2.90 3.00 4.00 0.00

Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

Mediu

m

enterpr

ises

All Equal 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Almost Equal 2.00 3.70 0.20 0.00

Neutral 5.00 4.00 4.00 0.00

Depends on

performances 91.00

88.00 94.00 100.00

Different 2.00 4.30 1.80 0.00

Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

SPAIN Accommodation Restaurants Travel

Agencies Others

Company

size

Small

enterpr

ises

All Equal 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Almost Equal 0.00 2.00 2.00 0.00

Neutral 1.00 1.00 5.00 0.00

Depends on

performances 96.00 94.00 87.00 98.00

Different 3.00 3.00 6.00 2.00

Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00

Mediu

m

enterpr

ises

All Equal 0 n.a. n.a. n.a.

Almost Equal 0 n.a. n.a. n.a.

Neutral 0 n.a. n.a. n.a.

Depends on

performances 96 n.a. n.a. n.a.

Different 4 n.a. n.a. n.a.

Total 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00




All these considered key-changes involving the transition to a competitive SMEs sector should take into consideration the following: creating and implementing human resources

development strategies of SMEs, as a prerequisite to increase their performance in the new

socio-economic context (Campo-Martinez et al., 2010, pp. 862-870). SMEs tend to give

greater importance to human resources than larger organizations, because of the simplified

hierarchical structure, which promotes greater interaction between management and

execution personnel, and, furthermore, higher interest and commitment of organization

employees. In our opinion, another solution represents innovation support within SMEs,

fact also sustained by development and implementation of the scientific progress.

The variables used within the research, respectively the organization’s economic

performance (OEP), human resources material motivation (HRMM), human resources

immaterial motivation (HRUM) are presented in table no. 4, while the results are presented in table no. 5.

Table no. 4: Main variables of the research

Variable name

Measurement scale Variable type Definition

OEP Numerical (1-10) Endogenous Organization economic performance

HRMM Numerical (1-5) Explanatory Human resources material motivation

HRUM Numerical (1-5) Explanatory Human resources immaterial motivation

Table no. 5: Values of main variables of the research

Explanatory variables Total sample

117 Medium Romania

Medium Spain

Small Romania

Small Spain

Mean value for OEP 8,33 9 8,30 7,25 8,05

Standard deviation 1,1413 1,1265 1,396 2,527 1,322

Variance 1,996 1,600 1,949 6,385 1,748

Mean value for HRMM 3,95 4,30 4,38 3,93 3,92


Variance 0,578 0,678 0,500 0,495 0,474

Mean value for HRUM 3,14 3,13 3,14 5,50 1,67


Variance 10,142 4,125 4,695 68,818 1,059

Some of the significant findings of the study tested under the standard deviations and

variance assumptions are given below.

The importance given by managers of tourism enterprises to organizational performance

tends to increase as the size of the firm becomes larger (from small to medium enterprises).

The importance given to Human resources material motivation is not distributed similarly

across small and medium enterprises; managers are more likely give importance to

employees' material motivation than to immaterial forms of motivation. The use of

immaterial motivation is not correlated with the main variable – organization economical

performance –fact sustained to the extremely high variance value (10,142). The dependent

variable Human resources material motivation proved to be associated with the independent

variable Organization economic performance. The standard deviation measures the error of the supposed association between the independent variable Organization economic



performance and the dependent variable Human resources material motivation, with result

less than 1 (0,760) – the error is accepted.

Conclusions

The results of the study demonstrate that managers’ opinion regarding the way employees

should be motivated corresponds with the research hypothesis: a different type and form of

motivation should be applied for every employee, according to his/hers work results and

performances. Furthermore, the learning capacity and knowledge sharing within SMEs

consists of maintaining levels of innovation and remaining competitive, being better

prepared to respond to external pressures, improving corporate image by becoming more

people orientated. At the organizational level, a successful human resources development program will prepare the individual to undertake a higher level of work. Hypothesis 1 and 2

are confirmed.

Our research results confirm hypothesis 3: learning organization for services area has

gained a permanent role within SMEs and ensures the continual improvement and growth

of both individual and organization.

As part of the overall development strategy, learning organization for services area mainly

refers to skilful provision and organization of learning experiences, in order that business

goals and organizational growth can be achieved.

Acknowledgements

This article is to be a result of the exploratory research project “Organizational Learning

Model within the Knowledge-Based Economy from Romania”, PN II, Ideas, financing contract no. 1844/2008. The project is co funded by Scientific Research National Council of

Higher Education and coordinated by The Academy of Economic Studies from Bucharest.

References

Beardwell, I. and Holden, L., 2001. Human Resource Management: a Contemporary

Approach. 3rd ed. London: Pretince Hall.

Campo-Martinez, S. et al., 2010. Factors influencing repeat visit to a destination: The

influence of group composition. Tourism Management Review, 31( 6), pp.862-870.

Cohen, J., 1998. Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. 2nd ed. Hillsdale,

New Jersey: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates.

Costică, R., Stanciu, P. and Condratov, I., 2008. Human Factor in Sustainable Tourism

between Ethics and Social Responsibility. Amfiteatru Economic, X(23), pp. 136-141.

Dinu, V., Marchevski, I., Dobrescu, E. and Petrescu, R.M., 2010. Education and Training

Needs in the Field of Consumer Protection in the Lower Danube Region. Amfiteatru

Economic, XII(Special issue 4), pp. 709-734.

Eurostat, 2011. Eurostat. [online] Available at:

<http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/eurostat/home/> [Accessed 17 October 2010].



Howell, P. and David, C., 1997. Statistical Methods for Psychology. 4th

ed. London: Duxbury Press.

Levin, I.-P., 1999. Relating statistics and experimental design. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Publications.

Mintzberg, H., 2004. Managers, not MBAs: a hard look at the soft practice of managing

and management development,1st ed. Ed. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Olaru, M. et al., 2010. Responsible Commercial Activity Of SMEs And Specific Values Of

Sustainable Development In Terms Of The European Excellence Model. Amfiteatru

Economic, XI(27), pp. 10-26.

Petrescu, I., Dinu, V., Ştefănescu, C. and Dobrescu, E., 2010. Human Factor’s Involvement In The Consumer Protection Management. Amfiteatru Economic, XII(28), pp. 267-286.

Popescu, D.et al., 2010. Human Resources Development within Romanian Small and

Medium Entreprises in a Knowledge Based Economy. Metalurgia Internaţional,

XV(7/2010), pp. 48-52.

Richman-Hirsh, W.-L., 2001. Posttraining interventions to enhance transfer. The

moderating effects of work environments. Human Resources Development Quaterly

Review, 12(2), pp.105-120.

Sutherland, J. and Canwell, D., 2004. Key Concepts in Human Resource Management.

New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Vasiliu, C., 2009. Employees Competences – the Success Factor of Commerce Enterprises.

Amfiteatru Economic, XI(25), pp. 79-90.

Yamnil, S. and McLean, G.-N., 2001. Theories supporting transfer of training. Human

Resources Development Quarterly, 12 (2), pp.73-84.

Wells, D. and Schminke, M., 2001. Ethical development and human resources training. An

integrative framework. Human Resources Management Review, 11 (1/2), pp.135-158.

AE Estimating the Importance of Social Media in Consumers’ Education and Information Using New Techniques


ESTIMATING THE IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN CONSUMERS’

EDUCATION AND INFORMATION USING NEW TECHNIQUES

Cristian Bogdan Onete1

, Răzvan Dina2 and Eugen Remus Negoi

3

1) 2) 3) Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

The social media is composed of easily accessible web tools through which people

converse, participate, create, recommend, valorify information and respond online to

everything that happens around them. These web tools offer a dynamic virtual environment

where users are engaged in a continuous traffic generated by information and interactivity.

Internet development and access to information led to a change in consumer behavior in

Romania. In this context, it must be taken into account that the buying decision and the

decision to include certain foods in daily diet is significantly influenced by the views and

experiences of other consumers, expressed in the virtual environment. Thus a new communication channel provided by the internet through social media (forums, chat, blogs,

sites reviews) appeared.

In this respect, we conducted a research - using the main search engines – with the aim to

analyze the evolution of the number of forums and blogs, and also of the posts on these,

related to the words bio-eggs, eggs from battery raised chickens and eggs numbering,

during December 2009 – June 2010.

Keywords: Social Media, consumers’ education, ecological food, forum, blog

JEL Classification: D83, M31, Q13

Introduction

Traditional media has been reflected first by the print media (in the 17th century, the first newspapers appeared in Venice). At the end of the 19th century, the telecommunications

revolution followed, which led to the emergence of the technological media, through two

compounds: the analog media (represented by telephone, radio and television) and the

digital media (represented by internet). Technology has advanced at a rapid pace, so the

internet became the most conducive environment for global communication.

Digital media is different from traditional media through several communication features

such as: environment and methods of communications - through search engines, websites,

blogs, social networks, forums, or the type of the searched interaction - looking for

Corresponding author, Cristian Bogdan Onete - [email protected]



information, purchase of products, dialogue, and proficiency in a particular field. This is measurable and flexible, allowing communication to improve.

1. Social media - the communication channel of the 21st century

We live in the 21st century, an era of online communication and transactions in which social

media and social networks have experienced a real growth and have been known

throughout the world in the last decade. On everyone’s lips, from 10 years old children

until persons belonging to the third generation, a few common words such as Facebook,

Twitter, MySpace, Hi5, LinkedIn, forums, or blogs, are.

Social networks have emerged as a result of public desire for something new and exciting.

These social networks provide a dynamic virtual environment where users are engaged in a

continuous traffic, generated by information and interactivity. The idea of being able to communicate easily with a simple platform to use, it has become increasingly popular,

resulting in an explosion of social media.

In the online environment, social media is a complex term that can take various forms,

being mostly used to describe the social aspect or the art of communication in media; a

phrase - composed of two words - that leads to one meaning. Media refers to advertising

and transmission of ideas and information through various channels, while social involves

the interaction between individuals within a group or community. The term social media

refers to communication platforms generated and sustained by interpersonal interaction of

people, using specific methods or procedures.

The introduction of this term is attributed to Chris Shipley, co-founder of Guidewire Group,

a company from San Francisco dealing with studying and making reports on trends and

technological innovation. This company has used the term to describe online communication and information, and participation and collaboration in this environment.

A social network can be defined as an application that helps, expands or gains consistency

with human interaction, interaction between groups who share the same interests, coming

from the same cultural, geographic field or, according to certain criteria, can join and form

a community of interests. A social network is the place where the passion for something,

the mutual interest gathers people. People stick to a label, stick to a certain class, or stick to

a group or they simply gather because they belong to the same region.

Another definition of social media describes it as media for social interaction, using easily

accessible display techniques. Social media uses web technologies to transform

communication in interactive dialogues. Companies define social media as being generated

by consumers (CGM – consumer generated media).

Social media is composed from easily accessible web tools through which people converse,

participate, create, recommend, valorify information and respond online to everything that

happens around them.

The term social media “is a generic term that defines a series of online communication

channels, social networking and systems of information dissemination that include forums,

groups, blogs, social networks and mobile content / video / audio sharing and instant

communication.”



The term refers to new online media types, characterized by:

Participation – social media encourages the contribution and feedback from anyone

interested. Social media covers the line between media and audience;

Open – the services of social media are open to feedback and participation. They

encourage the voting, comments and information distribution. There are rare the cases in

which the access and usage of the content is hindered (because the password – protected

content is not authorized by the users);

Conversation – while traditional media (newspapers, magazines, television, books,

radio) is defined by the broadcast term (transmitted and distributed content to an audience),

social media is seen mostly by analogy with a two-way conversation (dialogue);

Community – social media allows communities to rapidly form themselves and to communicate effective. Communities share joint interests, such as the passion for

photography, political problems or favorite TV shows, etc.;

Connectivity – most types of social media are expanding by their interconnection,

making possible the inclusion of links to other websites, resources or people.

The communication model, promoted by traditional media, is the monologue. In social

media, this is replaced by dialogue. Thus, in the new social media types, communication

takes on the characteristics of dialogue: it is transparent, authentic, vibrant and driven by

the consumer.

Generally, the following main types of social media applications are used: social networks,

blogs, wiki, podcasts, new channels (RSS and Atom), communication for the organization

and share of a specific type of content (photo, video, and documents), micro-blogging, forums, chat, and virtual worlds.

2. The relationship between the new consumer and the organic food

As a consequence of the unprecedented development of electronic commerce, with its

known business models, the Internet became the development generator of the new

economy. In this context, the consumer, acting on a globalized market, strongly connected

through the Internet, became a consumer with a complex life style, skilled and competent,

which can be named the new consumer.

The new consumer manifests the tendency of displaying an increased confidence in the

information gathered from the online environment. He reads the opinions of other

consumers before making a purchase. For the new consumers, as they are very informed,

the consumption of organic food is very important. They appreciate organic products for their rich content of mineral salts and vitamins, and for the high level of hygiene employed

in their production.

In Romania - although at a smaller scale compared to other countries - there is an increase

in the consumers’ interest in organic food; consumers become more aware of the long-term

health benefits of these products.

Internet expansion in Romania changed the Romanian consumer's behavior. In the current

context, the new consumer’s purchase decision - that includes also food purchase - may be



significantly influenced by the opinions and experiences of other consumers expressed in the virtual environment, on the strength of the development of the new ways of

communication offered by the Internet (forums, chats, review websites, blogs etc.).

We anticipate that there is a link between social media and the decisions taken by the new

consumer. To explain different aspects of this issue we conducted a survey in which we

pursued:

The role of Internet as an information/educational resource for the new consumer in

Romania

The way news in traditional media are presented and shared in social media

The possibilities regarding the education of the new consumer in Romania through

the internet and social media in what concerns the consumption of organic food.

Our research was carried out online by using the main web search engines in Romania and worldwide.

The focus was on the evolution of the number of forums and blogs on subjects concerning

the following key words “organic eggs”, “battery raised chickens” and “egg labeling”,

during the period December 2009 - June 2010.

These subjects were chosen due to the emergence of various news related to them in the

traditional media, such as the news issued by Gheorghe Mencinicopschi.

Gheorghe Mencinicopschi, PhD, professor of biology and biochemistry and expert in

human nutrition, food safety, and nutritional planning, is the director of the Romanian

Institute of Food Research. In January 2010, professor Mencinicopschi published a book on

nutritional advice, entitled “Noua ordine alimentara - Şi noi ce mai mâncăm?” (“The new

food order. So what do we eat now?”). While promoting the book, he appeared on a popular TV talk show on the evening of February 3rd 2010. One of the topics reached

during the show, was about the mandatory eggs labeling. He argued that it is best to

consume the eggs whose first digit on the label is 0 as these eggs are organic or those

whose first digit on the label is 1 or 2 (coming from free range chickens and barn-raised

chickens). The other eggs, with the first digit 3, are from battery raised chickens, and he

argued that their consumption is recommended to be limited or avoided.

The research aimed at showing the connection between this news and the interest of the

new consumer in organic food.

Although the news first appeared in February 2010, the online research covers a wider

interval in order to identify how the interest in organic food (mainly in organic eggs) is

reflected in online posts, both before and after the news emergence on TV. We were

interested in identifying whether there is a growth in the interest of the new consumer for organic foods after the emergence of the news and whether an expert’s opinion on the

matter is important.

Concerning the interest in organic food - in this case, organic eggs – we carried out an

online research with the aim to identify the number of discussion on blogs and forums in

Romania. To obtain a higher accuracy, we used combinations of words, further on defined

as models:



Model 1 (keywords 1): the relationship between specialist’s message and egg

labeling

Model 2 (keywords 2): the relationship eggs-labeled egg-battery raised chickens.

3. The evolution of discussions on blogs

Table no. 1, table no. 2, and their associated figures present the evolution of the number of

discussions posted on Romanian blogs, related to model 1 and model 2.

Table no. 1: The evolution of the number of discussions posted on Romanian blogs for

model 1 (the relationship between specialist’s message and egg labeling)

Month Dec. 2009

Jan. 2010

Feb. 2010

Mar. 2010

Apr. 2010

May 2010

June 2010

Number of discussions

2 12 216 145 57 12 9

According to the graphical representation of the data from table no. 1, can be observed a

sudden growth in the number of discussions (216) corresponding to the moment when the

news appeared in the traditional media (February 2010), followed by a constant decrease

during the next 3 months down to the level associated to the period before the appearance

of the news (figure no. 1).

Figure no. 1: The evolution of the number of discussions posted on Romanian blogs

for model 1

Table no. 2: The evolution of the number of discussions posted on Romanian blogs for

model 2 (the relationship eggs-labeled egg-battery raised chickens)

Month Dec. 2009

Jan. 2010

Feb. 2010

Mar. 2010

Apr. 2010

May 2010

June 2010


41 40 665 424 287 124 125



According to the graphical representation of data presented in table no. 2, can be observed that, in February 2010 - the month when the news appeared in the traditional media – a

sharp increase in the number of discussions posted on blogs was registered, respectively

665, compared to January 2010 when a number of 40 discussions was registered. Also, in

this case, can be observed that a sudden decrease was registered in March 2010 (424

discussions), followed by a slight decrease during the next 2 months (figure no. 2).

Figure no. 2: The evolution of the number of discussions posted on Romanian blogs

for model 2

4. The evolution of discussions on forums

Table no. 3, table no. 4, and their associated figures show the evolution of the number of

discussions posted on Romanian forums, related to model 1 and model 2.

Table no. 3: The evolution of the number of discussions posted on Romanian forums

for model 1 (the relationship between specialist’s message and egg labeling)

Month Dec. 2009

Jan. 2010

Feb. 2010

Mar. 2010

Apr. 2010

May 2010

June 2010

Number of

discussions 25 52 237 183 114 92 69

Figure no. 3 presents a growth in the number of discussions related to the relation between

the specialist’s message and egg labeling. The increased interest in this subject was only

maintained during February 2010 (237 discussions, compared to January 2010, when only 10 discussions were registered) when the news appeared on TV. Also, between March and

June, a slight decrease in the interest regarding this subject is registered, compared to the

level associated to the period before the appearance of the news in the traditional media.



Figure no. 3: The evolution of the number of discussions posted on Romanian forums

for model 1

Table no. 4: The evolution of the number of discussions posted on Romanian forums

for model 2 (the relationship eggs-labeled egg-battery raised chickens)

Month Dec. 2009

Jan. 2010

Feb. 2010

Mar. 2010

Apr. 2010

May 2010

June 2010


652 1164 845 1388 1095 883 684

Figure no. 4 illustrates an evolution in the number of discussions completely different from

the one in figure no. 3. There is not a clear trend in the evolution of the discussions. An

interest in this topic is registered even before the news’ appearance in the traditional media

(in January 2010, 1164 discussions were registered). After the appearance of the news, a

decrease in the number of discussions was registered in February (845 discussions)

followed by a strong increase in March (1388 discussions), and only in June the number of

discussions on this subject was less than the one in February (respectively, 684 discussions

in June, compared to 845 in February). This situation can be explained by the fact that the

dynamics of the discussions on forum is different than the one on blogs.



Figure no. 4: The evolution of the number of discussions posted on Romanian forums

for model 2

Conclusions

Social media is a communication tool; it aims to transform monologue into dialogue, to

provide free access to any kind of information, and to transform the internet users from

ordinary readers into content creators. Social media facilitates the interaction in the online

world, in order to create new relationships for personal or business goals. Thus, through

social media, the loyalty and participation of people can be achieved, opinions can be easily

asked for, market research can be carried out, and easier communication at global level can

be achieved.

The common aspect to all the attempts of defining social media is represented by the mix of

technology and social interaction in order to create value. This interaction and the

presentation of information depend on the variety of perspective and the establishment of a

sense of belonging to a particular community, with sharing impressions and personal

experience of participants.

The research revealed that the news emerged in traditional media have a certain impact in

the social media - even if this is not very important - which leads to the idea that social

media cannot be yet used as an effective tool for education. This could be a consequence of

the fact that the internet is primary used as an entertaining environment and an option for

spending leisure time, than as a source for obtaining substantial information necessary for

transforming the individual into an aware and educated consumer, respectively a “new

consumer”.

In Romania as well as in the rest of the world, it is obvious that the Internet has become an

essential tool for informing and educating consumers. The emergence of the “new

consumer” is a consequence of development of Internet and of the increase of access to

online content, the “new consumers” being a category of people that gather their necessary

information from the Internet. All these facts lead to the conclusion that Internet represents

an educational resource.



The Internet - along with traditional media - becomes an important resource for learning

and education. Although the possibilities for educating the consumers through the Internet,

as well as the increase in number of the new consumers, are almost unlimited, their interest

is poorly reflected in social media. This is a consequence of the fact that the internet is

primary used as an entertaining environment and in order to achieve a transformation of

individuals into educated consumers, a lot of time is required. However, in the future, this

goal may be achieved both in Romania, and worldwide.

References

Alex, N., Deryck, H. and Justin P., 2009. Blogging and other social media: exploiting the technology and protecting the enterprise. Cornwall: MPG Books Ltd.

Comm, J., 2009. Twitter power 2.0. How to Dominate your Market one Tweet at a Time.

New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Euro RSCG Worldwide, 2010. Prosumer Report. The New Consumer in the Era of Mindful

Spending. [online] Available at: <http://www.thenewconsumer.com/wp-

content/uploads/2010/11/Prosumer_Report-_The_New_Consumer_lores.pdf>

[Accessed 28 September 2011].

Kelsey, T., 2010. Social Networking Spaces – From Facebook to Twitter and Everything in

Between. New York: Apress.

McGregor, S. L., 2000. Consumer education and the OECD electronic commerce

consumer protection guidelines. Journal of Consumer Studies & Home Economics,

24(3), pp. 170-178.

Ministry of Economic Development, 2008. The Digital Strategy 2.0. [online] Available at: <http://www.med.govt.nz/upload/73583/Digital-Strategy.pdf> [Accessed 28 October

2010].

Negrea, M., 2007. Noi modalităţi de comunicare: Media Generată de Consumatori (New

style in comunication: consumer-generated media). Amfiteatru Economic, IX(21), pp.

121-126 (In Romanian).

OECD, 2009. Promoting Consumer Education. Trends, policies and good practices. Paris:

OECD.

Onete, B., Constantinescu, M. and Filip, A., 2008. Internet buying behavior. Case study:

research of AES students' behavior regarding online shopping. Amfiteatru Economic,

X(Special issue 2), pp. 18-24.

Onete, B., Voinea, L. and Dina, R., 2010. Dimensions and evaluations of the new consumer concept in Romania. Current Issues of Business and Law, 5(2), pp. 341-355.

Pamfilie, R., Maiorescu, I. and Vişan, S., 2010. A new approach to business websites

within the framework of conceptual society-food companies reference. Current Issues

of Business and Law, 5(2), pp. 356-368.

Pierson, G., 2008. Social Media. Social Media Vision, [blog] 11 November, Available at:

<http://www.socialmediavision.com/social-media/> [Accessed 29 September 2011].

Popescu, D., Negrea, M., Voinea, L., and Stanciu, C., 2010, Conceptual transpositions

regarding the food quality in the mental of new consumer from Romania. In: The

Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, The 17th Symposium IGWT “Facing the



Challanges of the Future: Excellence in Business and Commodity Science”, Bucharest, Romania, 21-25 September 2010. Bucharest: ASE Publishing House.

Voinea, L., 2011. Cercetarea percepţiei noii generaţii de consumatori din România privind

calitatea produselor alimentare ecologice. Calitatea - Acess la succes Journal, 21(1),

pp. 52-59.

Weinberg, T., 2009. The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web. Sebastopol,

California: O’Reilly Media.

Zarrella, D., 2010. The Social Media Marketing Book. New York: O’Reilly Media Inc.

AE The Relationship Communication Structure - Uncertainty Avoidance Reflected in Romanian Websites Design


THE RELATIONSHIP COMMUNICATION STRUCTURE - UNCERTAINTY

AVOIDANCE REFLECTED IN ROMANIAN WEBSITES DESIGN

Doru Pleşea1

, Rodica Pamfilie2 and Irina Maiorescu

3


Abstract

As today’s society heads towards digitalization, the virtual environment gains a growing

importance. Shaping the e-environment in accordance to the real environment in order to

favour the activities and processes going to take place there requires a thorough design.

However, cultural attributes of reflected inherently by design play a core part in how the information displayed on websites is perceived. The present paper aims to bring a

perspective about transposing the proper communication structure into the website design,

from the cultural point of view and from genders point of view, as it resulted from a

research of Romanian students from Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies.

Keywords: cultural differences, website design, communication structure, gender

cognitive differences, consumer

JEL Classification: M16

Introduction

One of the most popular theories in what regards the differences among cultures belongs to

Edward Hall, his analysis leading him towards the conclusion that cultures differ one from another mostly by the way they structure their communication and how they perceive time.

Referring to communication, he classified the cultures in High Context cultures and Low

Context cultures (Hall and Hall, 1990).

Another approach of this subject brings into discussion the cultural dimensions resulted

from an extensive research of thinking patterns performed by Geert Hofstede. The five

dimensions which Hofstede considered important to be taken into account when analyzing

to a certain culture are the following: Power-distance, Individualism, Masculinity,

Uncertainty Avoidance, Long Term Orientation (Hofstede, 1997).

A research performed on students enrolled in the bachelor programs of Bucharest Academy

of Economic Studies in 2010 and 2011 showed a common line among these two theories,

the structure of communication being connected with Uncertainty Avoidance and Power Distance dimensions.

Corresponding author, Doru Pleşea - [email protected]



1. Communication structure

Referring to the particularities of the communication structure specific to nations across

world, Hall considers that in High Context cultures the body language, proximity and

symbols are very important, the message being fully understood through the whole context

the transmitter uses (Hall and Hall, 1990). In Low Context cultures, the sender of the

message relies mostly on words, used as clearly as possible, without hidden meanings.

The indirect nature of High-Context communication is expressed in website design through

images, symbols and animations – much of it being focused on people and their behaviour,

while Low-Context websites contain more text information and less images and motion

(Würtz, 2005).

In the same time, High Context cultures prefer taking small pieces of information at a time,

while Low Context cultures would rather take the whole amount of the required

information at once, efficiently.

It is acknowledged that the two genders show differences in their neurological structure of

the brains, the cortex being specialized differently for some of the cognitive processes.

Biologically speaking, human brain is divided into two hemispheres, each of them having

well defined functions. Research and experiments have proven that the left hemisphere

deals mostly with the cognitive processes related to logical and sequential analysis and

communication, while the right hemisphere is specialized in spatial perception and holistic

approach.

Also, it has been found out that the two hemispheres have a rather integrated manner of

functioning in women’s brain and a more specialized one in men’s brain. Thus, men

process the information sequential, piece by piece, while women often show a holistic,

integrated approach of the information perceived.

Hence, men would likely appreciate that the needed information to be placed in one spot,

concentrated. Women can deal better with multiple sources of information, as its

integration into a unitary message or idea it’s easier for them.

Men will therefore rather look for the fundamental elements, for the pattern or scheme,

while women tend to detail the message (McCormick and Whittington, 2000).

2. Uncertainty avoidance

Hofstede considers that cultures accept uncertainty and unpredictable events in different

ways. Thus, cultures have created various rituals for approaching the situations they are

not familiar with.

High uncertainty avoidance means that ambiguous situations are disliked and, generally,

clear structures in the organizations, institutions and relationships will keep unpredictable events under control, as what is different and unknown may be regarded as a threat.

A website designed for such cultures should be simple, with clear and structured

information. Often, predictability of the content following a link is expected to be met in

the structure of the website.



Low uncertainty avoidance cultures tend to be less openly anxious, unexpected events

being regarded as curious or interesting. The structure of information in websites can show

more complexity, without limiting strictly the content. Links to pages that open outside the

website may be used as they prove to offer useful and interesting information.

3. Romanian cultural dimensions

Romanian culture was not included in the analysis of both Hall and Hofstede, but it was

subject to extrapolation based on cultural affinities to other nations. Referring to

communication structure, Pleşea et al. (2010) deduced, based on a compared analysis of

five Latin countries websites design, that Romanian people are a slightly High Context

culture.

Due to the fact that the research of Hofstede was deployed during the years the communist regime was ruling Romania, the real information for his research was not available. Later

on, another research performed in Romania by Interact (2005), following a similar

methodology, proved however that some indexes were wrong estimated by Hofstede. In

table no. 1 are shown the estimated values of Hofstede indexes and also the calculated ones

by Interact in two different surveys.

Table no. 1: Hofstede indexes for Romania

Country Power

Distance Individualism Masculinity

Uncertainty

Avoidance

Long term

orientation

ROMANIA

– 1st survey

INTERACT

2005

29 49 39 61 42

ROMANIA

– 2nd

survey

INTERACT

2005

33 49 39 61 42

ROMANIA

- Geert

Hofstede

estimation

90 30 42 90 -

Source: Luca, 2005

4. Objectives and methods of investigation

The present paper aims to identify the relationship between communication structure and

Uncertainty Avoidance expressed in the design of an e-learning website created for

Romanian students.

Similarly, the paper seeks to evaluate whether Romanian are prone to a very high Uncertainty Avoidance behaviour (as estimated by Hofstede) or to a more moderate one (as

resulted from Interact surveys in 2005); also it seeks to find out if communication structure

is different for the two genders, regardless of the common culture students share –

Romanian.



The study is based on the analysis of the responses obtained from an online survey conducted on students enrolled in the various years of university bachelor programs from

Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies in 2010 and 2011.

The sample size has been calculated in order to fulfil the criteria of significance. The

sample resulted in a minimum of 375 respondents at a confidence level of 95% according to

formula (1):

)25.0()]1([

)1(22

2

ZNd

ppZNn

(1)

where,

n – sample size

N – total population( in Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies – the number of students enrolled in bachelor regular programs in 2010 – 2011 academic year, N = 14910 students)

d – margin of accuracy (5% , or 0.05)

Z –1,96 for a confidence level of 95%

p = 0.5

In order to determine whether there is a certain preference of students for the structure of

the information communicated through website, two different versions of the same e-

learning website, presenting courses (figure no. 1 and 2) were shown to the students. They

were asked to choose the preferred version.

Both the name of the training provider, the logos and information used are fictional; the

website does not exist in reality as it was especially designed for the research purpose.

There were 439 valid responses, fulfilling thus the criteria of significance of the sample.

5. Results of the research

Romania is a country with a very high index of Uncertainty Avoidance according to

Hofstede and a quite moderate one according to the surveys of Interact. The reflection of

high Uncertainty Avoidance in websites design is expressed through clear and simple

structures and not so much information.

Analyzing the answers received from the students, it can be noticed a clear preference of

both genders for the vertical and simpler structure of information, as 73.46% of respondents

indicated this version of website.



Figure no. 1: E-learning website: vertical, clear and simple structure of information

This high percentage of responses indicating a visible inclination for the vertical structure of information confirms the rather High Context communication structure Romanian have,

as this kind of design offers small amounts of information at a time and not so much text.

Also, this proves the not so high Uncertainty Avoidance behaviour. Both versions of

websites have clear and structured information, but the horizontal structure one offers more

detailed text about the courses content.

Though the programs of study suggested in these two websites belong to Business and

Economics zone, some of them are not comprised in the curricula of the Bucharest

Academy of Economic Studies and, therefore, not familiar to the respondents. If Romanian

students have been characterized by a very high Uncertainty Avoidance behaviour, it would

have been expected that the version with horizontal structure of information to be more

preferred.

However, comparing the distribution of answers respective to genders, it was remarked a

slightly increased preference for the vertical structure of the feminine respondents; the

horizontal structure of information version of website was preferred in a greater amount by

masculine respondents.



Figure no. 2: E-learning website: horizontal, clear structure and more complex

information

This finding can be explained by the neurological structure of brain different to the two

genders. As the horizontal structure version contains more concentrated information about

each course, men preferred in a larger percentage than women this type of communicating

the information. The vertical structure contains less information about each course (as a

matter of fact there are displayed as links only the names of the courses, without any additional information in the page about their content) and it is preferred in a larger amount

by women, as their exploring behaviour is more accentuated.

Still, the vertical structure is more preferred, meaning that culture prevails over gender

differences in perceiving and communicating the information.

6. Limitations of the research

Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies is the largest economic university in Romania, its

graduated students applying their skills in all areas of business activity. However, the

results of the present study – though significant for the group of age between 19 – 26 years

and for Romania, have to pondered carefully when extending them to other cultures and

other age categories.



Conclusions

Nowadays, companies rely more and more on virtual environment in their efforts to

communicate with consumers. The website of the company is the place where the products

and services are presented, promoted and also the place that often gives identity to the

organization. It is vital that the website is not just a collection of text, images, interactive

features, animation and sounds, but a place carefully designed to fulfil clients’ requirements

and expectations.

Culture is essential for understanding the patterns of thinking and communication specific

to both organization and its clients. The structure of communication is part of the cultural

heritage of the individual and so is the behaviour resulting from Uncertainty Avoidance.

Romanian culture is characterized by a quite oriented High Context communication

structure and also by a medium - high Uncertainty Avoidance attitude. These two dimensions have a similar reflection in websites’ design as the structure of information

shows it.

Though consumers show differences in the way information is best transmitted and

perceived because of the specific gender’s cognitive structures, culture proves to have

even a stronger influence on their behaviour.

References

Filip, A. and Anghel, L.D., 2009. Customer Loyalty and its Determinants in a Banking Services Environment. Amfiteatru Economic, XI(26), pp. 288-297.

Hall, E.T. and Hall, M.R., 1990. Understanding Cultural Differences. Boston: Intercultural

Press Inc.

Hofstede, G., 1997. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. New York:

McGraw-Hill.

Hofstede, G., 2001. Culture's Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions

and Organizations across Nations. London: Sage Publications Inc.

Huntington, S., 1998. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

Bucharest: Antet.

Keillor, B., Tomas, G. and Hult, M., 1999. A Five-Country Study of National Identity:

Implications for international marketing research and practice. International Marketing

Review, 16(1), pp. 65-84.

Luca, A., 2005. Studiu privind valorile dimensiunilor modelului Hofstede pentru România.

[online] Available at: <http://www.interact.ro> [Accessed 22 February 2011].

Maiorescu, I., 2008. The Role of Marketing in the Real ISO 9001:2000 Quality Management System. Amfiteatru Economic, X(Special issue 2), pp. 126-129.

Marcus, A. and Gould, E.W., 2000. Cultural Dimensions and Global Web User-Interface

Design: What? So What? Now What?. [online] Available at:

<http://www.amanda.com/resources/hfweb2000/AMA_CultDim.pdf> [Accessed 25

June 2008].

McCormick, D.F. and Whittington, M.S., 2000. Assessing academic challenges for their

contribution to cognitive development. Journal of Agricultural Education, 41(3), pp.

114-122.

http://www.amanda.com/resources/hfweb2000/AMA_CultDim.pdf



Olaru, M. and Herlemann, H., 2008, Improvement of competitiveness of international companies in a multicultural environment. Amfiteatru Economic, X(Special issue 2),

pp. 48-53.

Onete, B., 2008. Ethical Practices in Commercial Website Design. Amfiteatru Economic,

X(23), pp. 46-49.

Onete, B., Constantinescu, M. and Filip, A., 2007. Main Issues Regarding the Relationship

between Cognitive Maps and Internet Consumer Behavior - A Knowledge Based

Approach. Amfiteatru Economic , IX(22), pp. 115-120.

Onete, B., Constantinescu, M. and Filip, A., 2008. Internet buying behavior. Case study:

research of AES students' behavior regarding online shopping. Amfiteatru Economic,

X(Special issue 2), pp. 18-24.

Pleşea, D. et al., 2010. Culture reflected in websites - five European Latin countries

analysis. In: The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, The 17th Symposium IGWT “Facing the Challanges of the Future: Excellence in Business and Commodity

Science”, Bucharest, Romania, 21-25 September 2010. Bucharest: ASE Publishing

House.

Würtz, E., 2005. A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Websites from High-Context Cultures and

Low-Context Cultures, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, [online].

Available at: <http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue1/wuertz.html> [Accessed 28 June 2008].

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue1/wuertz.html

AE The Impact of Information Technologies on the Organization and Functioning of the Company


THE IMPACT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES ON THE ORGANIZATION

AND FUNCTIONING OF THE COMPANY

Valentin Florentin Dumitru

Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

The companies became more complex in terms of corporate structure and geographical area

because of the globalization process and they are facing a higher and higher data volume,

with a higher and higher competition level, especially during crisis moments, which makes

the use of the information technologies (IT) a competitive advantage. The objective of this

research was to prove the impact of the IT on the company. To this extent, we conducted an

empirical research. We launched five hypotheses and in the end we proved that there is a

dependency relationship between the size of a company and its degree of use of the IT,

between the decision of use of the IT within a company and the organization and the

functioning of the company, between the existence of the Internet in a company and its use for various purposes.

Keywords: information technologies, company, empirical research, impact

JEL Classification: M15

Introduction

Currently, companies are undergoing a profound transformation that leads to an increase in

complexity of work for those involved, but also for supplies, works and services. The

process of globalization of economic markets has imposed new pressures on IT. This circumstance requires the need for working with more sophisticated tools, including IT (IT)

to meet the challenges of a changing social reality and increasingly complex and

demanding. The relationship between these factors was investigated in the past using

contingency theory (eg, by authors Blackaby et al., 1995).

Together with the analysis of contingency factors the reference to current issues and their

influence on firm strategy is important, and requires the deployment and management of

information tools, such as to make performance easier to achieve by those responsible by

offering a set of related information.

An optimal deployment of IT by companies means better adaptation to a changing

environment, allowing the existence of long distance relationship and causing a high degree

Author’s contact: e-mail: valentin.dumitru@soft-expertinfo



of competitiveness. In this way, the dynamic nature of a firm can be improved. Even when a company is small, it must assimilate the use of IT. Moreover, since there is a greater

number of intercommunication, the more likely it is to achieve diversification in a

traditional company, and various improvements in its departments. Using IT, it is possible

to know the risk of operations and to provide future earnings. The improvement of business

relationships outside the firm, especially with external clients connecting to the company's

website is also a significant factor. All these advantages were developed and tested in larger

firms but can be extrapolated to small and medium-sized firms. In reality, in an economy

such as the Romanian one, the use of IT is a prerequisite for development and growth.

The answer to the problems that seem to exceed us through the complexity, dynamics and

the volume of data, processing and decisions, is the implementation of IT&C systems. The

IT&C systems offer the quality of strategic resource to the electronic information, for an

advantage position in the competition of the market economy (Surcel and Bologa, 2008).

In this research I started from the idea that IT has a positive, increasing impact on the

company.

All the achievements in IT have the main purpose of reaching the global information

society, which, according to O'Brien (1999), involves “confrontation” of four technological

values, namely:

computer company stage, covering the period 1970-2010;

interconnected knowledgeable workers stage, which began in 1980;

interconnected global business stage, started around the years 1992-1993;

the stage of global information company, which began after 2010.

The rest of this paper is structured as it follows:

a literature review;

the presentation of the research methodology used;

the analysis of the responses received to the questionnaire;

the conclusions of the paper.

1. Literature Review

Among the systems used in the companies we considered that the most useful systems

currently are the ERPs (Enterprise Resource Planning), representing the complete and

complex solution that integrates the entire business. Among the potential effects of using IT

we retained dematerialization of documents and procedures, inter-organizational

information systems, defining roles and improving managerial processes in organizations

(Huber, 1990; Reix, 2002; Dumitru and Florescu, 2008). In our view, IT is essential for the

survival and development of the entity.

In recent years, researchers examined the design and use of management systems in relation

to the environment, IT, structure, strategy, firm size and culture. Traditionally, companies

had the disadvantage that they have more restrictions when it comes to resources, while



they have greater flexibility to adapt to environmental changes. Some authors engaged in

empirical analysis to determine if the companies were able to align the use of IT for

financial accounting department and if it is one factor that leads to an improvement in their

financial and organizational results (Debreceney and Gray, 2001; Velcu, 2008, Locke and

Lowem 2007, Russell et al., 1999; Bollecker, 2000, Albu, 2006; Hyvonen, 2003 etc.).

Many studies (Granlund and Malmi, 2002; Verdaasdonk and Wouters, 1999, Dechow and

Mouritsen, 2005 etc.) were directed on the relationship between business development and

proper deployment of IT technologies, supporting the theory that the proper use of IT

technologies help increase labor productivity, thereby affecting the critical wealth and

prosperity of a country. According to OECD (2000), the countries with the largest IT

investment achieve the greatest productivity growth indices. Also, companies that have an

ERP are presented as a solution to the problems of dispersion and fragmentation of information (Chtioui, 2006). Currently, IT management processes tend to optimize the

design of software packages in accordance with the best industry practices.

A large number of research is devoted to the impact of IT on the various components of the

financial and accounting information: financial accounting (Debreceney and Gray, 2001;

Velcu, 2008), financial audit (Tugui and Tugui, 2002; George, 2004; Roscoe and George,

2004; Stanciu and Mangiuc, 2006), managerial accounting and management control

(Russell et al., 1999; Bollecker, 2000; Verstegen et al., 2005; Albu, 2006), management and

exploitation of knowledge accounting (Scott, 1995; Kurunmäki, 2004; Burns and

Baldvinsdottir, 2005; Hyvonen et al., 2006); performance of the company's financial

accounting department (Dewan and Kraemer, 1998, Mahmood and Mann, 2000; Jouirou

and Kalika, 2004; Florescu, 2008). In terms of financial accounting, we believe that IT should follow the trend shown in the internationalization of accounting standards. In our

view, this can be achieved by implementing ERPs, because they use multiple currencies

and they are multilingual systems. They also follow the trend of globalization and can

integrate with applications used by customers, suppliers, state etc. With regard to financial

audits, this is a new area of application of modern IT. Some researchers believe that there is

an impact of IT on management accounting (Caglio 2003), while other studies cannot

provide such certainty and argue that the impact is indirect, through the control system

(Scapens and Jazayeri 2003, Granlund and Malmi 2002). For management accounting and

management control we concluded that the role of people working in this field changed,

including their abilities now to use IT (Albu, 2006). In regard to the management and use of

accounting knowledge, I noticed that we talk now about a hybridization of the professions,

but also about the danger of loss of jobs along with the deployment of IT. Regarding the performance of the company's financial accounting department using IT models may be

proposed for the analysis of the financial accounting department.


The first part of our research based on fundamental research, lays in a review of the

literature on the impact of IT on organization and operation of the company. This review of

the literature helped us to structure the main widely accepted ideas on the subject, but

especially to determine how IT involvement in the company evolved in time.

Such research helped us to understand the theoretical concepts that form the basis of the

research area, but mostly helped us to convince ourselves that the substance of these



concepts is not a rigid, but one that is modelled in relation with time or space. Literature review provided us with the ability to understand the features of the current process of

deployment of IT and provided the foundation for applied research. On this basis we have

formulated the general hypothesis: IT has a direct impact on the organization and

functioning of the company.

To complete the research we conducted a study to illustrate the current situation for a

sample of companies in Romania. For this we formulated and tested the following research

hypotheses:

Q1: There is a relationship of dependency between the size of a firm and its degree of

computerization

Q2: There is a relationship of dependency between the domain of activity of the firm and its

degree of computerization

Q3: There is a relationship of dependency between the level of staff training and the use of IT within the company

Q4: There is a relationship of dependency between the decision to use IT within a firm and

its impact on the organization and functioning of a company

Q5: There is a relationship between the existence of Internet within a company and its use

for various purposes.

We tested these hypotheses through an empirical research based on a population survey of

82 companies in Romania. This part of positive research of the paper aims for the

formulation of explanations about the concepts under investigation and their fundaments in

the practice of the firms. We wanted to hear the opinions of the most informed people in the

field, which we believe are the managers.

To see if there is a correlation between independent and dependent variables in the analysis of responses to the questionnaire we chose Chi-square test (χ2). This method tests the null

hypothesis that two criteria of classification are independent. If two classification criteria

are not independent, there is an association between them.

Chi-square is calculated finding the difference between each observed and theoretical

frequency for each possible outcome, calculating their square, dividing them each on a

theoretical frequency and adding the results:

(1)

where: Oi = observed frequency;

Ei = expected frequency (theoretical) involved by the null hypothesis.

In our research, we used chi-square test for independence and we calculated χ2 using

Statistica software. On the other hand, we determined the critical value of χ2 in the statistics

table, taking the value of the degree of freedom (df) and probability (p). Statistical

significance (p level) of the result is an estimated size of the degree to which it is “true”



(within the meaning of “representative population”). Materiality level is p = 0.051. P

represents a decreasing index value level of security. When the p level is higher, the more

unlikely that the observed relationship between variables in the sample to be a reliable it is.

If χ2 is equal to or greater than the critical χ2 (0.05), the null hypothesis (H0) is rejected.

Otherwise, the null hypothesis is accepted.

Also, where possible, we conducted the tests: Fisher exact, Phi, other correlations. Fisher

exact test is interpreted similarly to χ2 test, but it is exact for a smaller number of responses.

3. The results of the empirical research

Through applied research based on a questionnaire2 we studied how the practice of firms is

reflected in respondent persons working in relation with IT. Respondents were employed in

various companies in Romania. The firms were classified according to size, establishing criteria as the volume of turnover, the volume of assets, employment and industry

(manufacturing, services etc.). The questions help us have a better understanding of the

strategies of the firms to adopt the Internet combined with other types of computer

networks: LAN, Intranet etc.

Other questions concerned the knowledge of how to use the Internet. Simple questions with

binary response (yes or no) invited the respondent to rule on the main uses of the Internet:

the transmission of service messages, adding and / or transmission of tax documents,

consultation and deployment of banking accounts, search for information about business,

looking for information about regulations, forming on-line, and information disclosure on

the Internet. These questions focused on providing a role as mediator of these technologies

within the firm and the relationship with external partners.

The next section was devoted to collecting data on business computerization. Within it, we

addressed questions like: how to make the computerized activities, the types of systems

used for specific activities, criteria for choosing software applications, the utilization of

Excel tables, positive effects from the use of present and future computer applications, the

degree to which user needs are satisfied by IT applications.

Some of the responses did not lead to rejection of the null hypothesis from the application

of chi square and Fisher exact tests.

In order to interpret the results, we presented in a first phase the distribution of independent

variables (number of employees, distribution of turnover, total asset distribution). The

ranges considered the criteria set out in the classification of national firms. Distribution of

responses according to the three criteria is as it follows:

Distribution of employees (var. 1)

Analysing the responses to question 1 (var.1) we found that the distribution of responses is

as it follows: 44% of respondents work in a number of firms with less than 50 employees

and 56% of respondents work in firms with fewer than 50 employees.

Distribution Turnover (var. 2)

1 Sometimes a materiality level of 1.00 is accepted for two degrees of freedom 2 For the questionnaire please send an e-mail to: [email protected]



Analysing the responses to question 2 (var.2) we found that the distribution of responses is as it follows: 53% of respondents work in firms with a turnover of less than EURO 1

million and 47% of respondents work in companies whose turnover is more than 1 million

EURO.

Distribution of total balance sheet assets (var. 3)

Analysing the responses to question 3 (var.3) we found that the distribution of responses is

as follows: 59% of respondents work in firms with a lower balance sheet total of EURO 1

million and 41% of respondents work in companies whose total assets is more than one

million EURO.

Approximately equidistant distribution of the number of responses in the two intervals for

any of the three existing criteria ensures an optimal number of responses in the two

categories for data analysis.

Percentage distribution of the work done with Excel spreadsheet processor (var. 24)

Analysing the responses to the question IV.4. (var. 24) we noticed that most respondents

use Excel spreadsheet processor for the achievement of more than 10% of the specific

tasks.

Distribution of works from the financial department (var. 25)

For the question IV.5 we received 64 responses. Our respondents use Excel spreadsheet

processor for preparing financial statements, including annexes, budgets, other reports

(sales journal, purchases journal, notes and depreciation) for management reporting,

balance the composition of analytical accounts etc.

Internet connection (var. 26)

After examining responses to the question IV.6. (var. 26), we noticed that all respondents

said that the company’s network is connected to the Internet. For this reason, we excluded the question from the statistics works.

Information processing time (var. 27)

After examining responses to the question IV.6. (var. 27), we noticed that all the

respondents said that the information was obtained in less time when using computer

applications. For this reason, we excluded the question from the statistics works.

Information processing speed (var. 28)

After examining responses to the question IV.6. (var. 28), we noticed that all the

respondents stated that the use of computer applications increased the speed of processing.

For this reason, we excluded the question from the statistics works.

Distribution of other benefits arising from the use of computer applications (var. 30)

For the question IV.6 we received eight responses. They concern the deployment and benefits of IT: correlation to the market, ease of actual work, better access to information,

reducing the budget by reducing the actual salaries, human error reduction, better control of

staff activities since any mistake can be detected in real-time, and processing of information

in less time.



Distribution of the problems arising in implementing IT (var. 31)

For the question IV.7 we received 29 responses. Among the most important we think that

are: delays in completing month-end reporting, the definition of integrity constraints,

difficulties in working with IT professionals, have long lead times, getting data from the old

system, lack of the domain’s characteristics knowledge from the software company,

overcrowding staff, the difficulty of the new system etc.

Distribution of other effects that will have in the future the use of IT (var. 37)

For the question IV.8 we received four responses. Our respondents provided as future

effects of the use of IT on business the use of a common method of reporting across the

organization, market competitiveness and business efficiency, achieve electronic archiving,

saving time and money, systematic work processes, establishing working procedures and

the possibility of implementing a quality system.

We detail according to the research hypotheses and responses received the analysis of the

study conducted:


computerization

To test this hypothesis, I launched the following null hypothesis:

Q10: The size of a firm and its degree of computerization are independent

To test the hypothesis we formulated the following questions: Question II.1. (Var. 1), the

question II.2. (Var. 2), the question II.3. (Var. 3), the question II.5. (Var. 5), the question

II.6. (Var. 6), the question II.7. (Var. 7), the question IV.1. (Var. 21), question IV.2. (Var.

22), question IV.4. (Var. 24), question IV.5. (Var. 25). Correlations tested that led to the

rejection of the hypothesis are:

The correlation between the turnover and the type of computer applications used in

the company

The breakeven point obtained (p = 0.1688) is less than 0.05, which means that a statistically

significant correlation is obtained.

We see the preference for the use of ERPs and of independent applications for types of

activities developed by different companies, in particular for the companies with a turnover

of more than EUR 1 million. There is a preference for the use of independent applications

by type of activities designed by the same firm, for the companies with a turnover of less

than EUR 1 million. This polarization of preferences can be attributed to higher allocation

of financial resources for the computerization of the companies with a greater turnover.

The frequency distribution shows that 33.33% of companies with a turnover of less than 1,000,000 use a ERP (integrated system), 55.55% use independent applications on the types

of activities developed by the same company and 11.12% use independent applications on

the types of activities developed by different companies. As regards the companies with

turnover of less than EUR 1,000,000, 62.5% use an ERP (integrated system), 21.87% use

independent applications by type of activities developed by the same company and 15.63%

use independent applications for the types of activities developed by different companies.



Correlation between the total balance sheet assets and the existence of a network of computers within the company

The breakeven point obtained (p = 0.08511) is between 0.05 and 0.1 which means that a

statistically significant correlation is obtained, but the link between the two variables is

weak.

This correlation analysis revealed the existence of the same trend (the existence of a

computer network) in companies with a balance sheet total exceeding EUR 1 million and

the companies whose balance sheet asset is below this limit. However, in companies with a

balance sheet asset value of more than EUR 1 million, the IT degree is greater, fact justified

by the share of answers, reflecting the degree of inclination of the right.

The frequency distribution shows that 68.29% of the companies whose balance sheet total

is less than EUR 1 million has a computer network and only 31.71% did not use such a

network. As regards the companies with a total balance sheet assets of more than 1,000,000 in 86.21% of these there is a network of computers and in the rest not.

Correlation between the number of employees and the existence of the company

Intranet

Breakeven point obtained (p = 0.0780) is between 0.05 and 0.1 which means that a


weak.

It finds that in the firms with a number of employees over 50 Intranet is used in greater

extent than in companies with less than 50 employees. This is justified by the need for a

rapid mean of communicating information between departments.

The distribution of responses shows that 47.22% of firms with fewer than 50 employees

have Intranet and the rest not. Also, 66.66% of companies with over 50 employees have Intranet.

Correlation between turnover and the existence of the company Intranet

Materiality obtained (p = 0.0125) is less than 0.05, which means that statistically significant

correlation is obtained.

It appears that in the companies with a turnover of more than EUR 1 million an Intranet is

used more than in firms with turnover below this limit. The result is justified by the need

for a rapid mean of communicating information between departments within large

companies. The conclusion is convergent with the correlation between the use of Intranet

and number of employees.

From the distribution of responses we notice that in 48.57% of companies with a turnover

under EUR 1 million is Intranet and in the rest not. In relation to companies with a turnover of over EUR 1 million, 78.13% have Intranet and only 21.87% do not have.

Correlation between the total balance sheet assets and the existence of the company

Intranet

Materiality obtained (p = 0.01788) is less than 0.05, which means that statistically




It appears that companies with a balance sheet total of more than EUR 1 million use

Intranet more than firms with a balance sheet total under this limit. The result is justified by

the need for a rapid mean of communicating information between departments within large

companies. The conclusion is convergent with correlation between the use of Intranet and

number of employees, and the use of Intranet and the turnover of a company.

Distribution of responses reveals that 47.5% of firms with a lower balance sheet total of

EUR 1,000,000 have Intranet and the rest do not. At the same time, 75.86% of companies

with an active balance sheet exceeding EUR 1,000,000 have Intranet and only 24.14% do

not.

After analyzing the results, we can say that the null hypothesis is rejected. Thus, we affirm

that there is a relationship of dependency between the size of a firm and its degree of

computerization.

Q2: There is a relationship of dependency between the activities of the firm and its degree

of computerization

To test this hypothesis, we launched the following null hypothesis:

Q20: Areas of activity of firms and their degree of computerization are independent

To test the hypothesis we formulated the following questions: question II.4. (Var. 4), the

question II.5. (Var. 5), the question II.6. (Var. 6), the question II.7. (Var. 7), the question

IV.1. (Var. 21), question IV.2. (Var. 22), question IV.4. (Var. 24), question IV.5. (Var. 25).

Following statistical tests, we note that none of the correlations has been validated, and the

null hypothesis cannot be rejected. Therefore, activities of the firms and their degree of

computerization are independent. In other words, firms with different business areas may

have the same degree of computerization.

Q3: There is a relationship of dependency between the level of staff training and the use of

IT within the company


Q30: Staff training and the use of IT within the company are independent

To test the hypothesis we formulated the following questions: question II.4. (Var. 9),

question II.5. (Var. 14), question II.6. (Var. 15), question II.7. (Var. 16), question IV.1.

(Var. 17), question IV.2. (Var. 18), question IV.1. (Var. 19), question IV.1. (Var. 20),

question IV.1. (Var. 22).

Following statistical tests performed, we notice that none of the correlations could be

validated, and the null hypothesis cannot be rejected. Therefore, the level of staff training

and the use of IT within the company are independent.

Q4: There is a relationship of dependency between the decision to use IT within a firm and its impact on the organization and functioning of the company


Q40: The decision to use IT within a firm and its impact on the organization and functioning

of the company shall be independent



To test the hypothesis I formulated the following questions: question III.3. (Var. 14), question III.3. (Var. 15), question III.3. (Var. 16), question III.3. (Var. 17), question III.3.

(Var. 18), question III.3. (Var. 19), question III.3. (Var. 20), question IV.3. (Var. 23),

question IV.6. (Var. 29), question IV.8. (Var. 32), question IV.8. (Var. 33), question IV.8.

(Var. 34), question IV.8. (Var. 35), question IV.8. (Var. 36), question IV.8. (Var. 38). The

correlations tested that led to the rejection of the fourth null hypothesis are:

Correlation between the use of the Internet messaging service for communication

within the company department and computerization of inter-organizational relations

Materiality obtained (p = 0.03801) is less than 0.05, which means that statistically


After analyzing the answers I found an obvious correlation between the use of Internet

messaging service for communication and computerization of inter-organizational relations.

The distribution of responses shows that 87.5% of respondents from companies where the Internet is used to communicate work messages believe that in the future IT will have as an

effect the computerized inter-organizational relations. In the case of companies where the

Internet is not used for the communication of service messages, only 50% of respondents

believe that the future effects of IT will be computerized inter-organizational relations.

Correlation between Internet use for filing tax / social statements and reduced

decision time

I note that the value obtained (p = 0.06331) is between 0.05 and 1, which means that

statistically the correlation exists but is weak.

The analysis of responses reveals a correlation between Internet use for filing tax / social

statements and reduced decision time. This can be explained by reducing operating time

and increased time devoted to reporting and analysis.

From the distribution of responses I observe that 96.97% of respondents from firms that use

Internet for filing tax / social statements believe that the future effect of the use of IT on

business will be to reduce decision time. 84.62% of respondents from firms that do not use

Internet for filing tax / social statements believe that the future effect of the use of IT on

business will be to reduce decision time.

Correlation between the use of the Internet for consulting bank accounts and the

transactions and the use of IT for the dematerialization of documents and procedures

Materiality obtained (p = 0.09201) is between 0.05 and 1, which means that statistically

there is a correlation, but this is pretty weak.

The correlation can be explained by the fact that Internet use for consulting bank accounts

and the transactions is just a form of dematerialization of documents.

Analyzing the responses I see that 63.83% of respondents from companies where the

Internet is used for consulting bank accounts and the transactions deemed dematerialization

of documents and procedures will not be a result of the use of IT in the future. Only 17.86%

of respondents from companies where the Internet is used for consulting bank accounts and

the transactions deemed dematerialization of documents and procedures will not be a result

of the use of IT in the future.



Correlation between the use of the Internet for consulting bank accounts and the

transactions and inter-organizational computerization

I note that the threshold of significance obtained (p = 0.05998) is between 0.05 and 1,

which means that statistically there is a correlation, but this is pretty weak.

The correlation can be explained by the fact that banking is a relationship with the units

inter-organizational.

From the distribution of responses I observed that 91.49% of respondents from companies

where the Internet is used for consulting bank accounts and the transactions considered that

in the future the use of computerized IT will lead to inter-organizational relations. 75.86%

of the respondents from companies where the Internet is not used for consulting bank

accounts and the transactions considered that in the future the use of computerized IT will

lead to inter-organizational relations.

Correlation between the use of the Internet for seeking information from other

businesses and inter-organizational computerization

Materiality obtained (p = 0.00276) is less than 0.05, which means that a statistically


We see preference for the use of computerized inter-organizational relationships (with

customers, suppliers, state representatives etc.) for the firms that use the Internet to search

for business information. This polarization of preferences can be attributed to the fact that

people who currently use the Internet realizes that it brings advantages (ie, reducing the

time spent exchanging information with parties) in its relationship with partners.

Following analysis of responses we can say that 88.73% of respondents from companies

where the Internet is used to search for information from other businesses believes that the future use of IT will result in the computerization of the inter-organizational relationships.

Only 40% of respondents from companies where the Internet is used to search for

information from other businesses and inter-organizational computerization consider the

same thing.

Correlation between the use of the Internet for seeking information from other

businesses and the benefits achieved by implementing software application

Materiality obtained (p = 0.09222) is between 0.05 and 0.1 which means that the


weak.

It is noted that people using the Internet to search information about other businesses use

applications that have responded better to their expectations. This can be explained by the fact that people who sought information on the Internet before the deployment of new

applications were better informed and were able to purchase a suitable system.

From the distribution of responses we notice that 55.55% of respondents who come from

companies where the Internet is used to search for information from other businesses

believe that the software applications that were implemented respond to their expectations

100%; 31.94% considered they respond to their expectations 75-99% and 0-75% the

difference in proportion. 28.57% of respondents who come from companies where the

Internet is not used to search for information from other businesses believe that the



software applications that were implemented respond to their expectations 100%, 28.57% considered they respond to their expectations 75-99% and 0-75% the difference in

proportion.

Correlation between the use of the Internet for seeking information concerning

regulations and the reduced time for decision

Materiality obtained (p = 0.06917) is between 0.05 and 0.1 which means that the


weak

It is noted that people who use the Internet to search information about regulations

consumes less time for decision. This can be explained by the fact that people who use the

Internet are informed faster than, for example, the ones that use books, textbooks, paper,

legislation etc.

The distribution of responses showed that 96% of people who use the Internet for seeking information on regulations that affect the company believe that the use of IT in the future

will reduce decision time. 75% of those not using the Internet for seeking information on

regulations that affect the company believe the use of IT in the future will reduce decision

time.

Correlation between the use of the Internet for seeking information on regulations

and redefining roles in organizations

Materiality obtained (p = 0.08561) is between 0.05 and 0.1 which means that a statistically

significant correlation is obtained, but the link between the two variables is weak.

The distribution of responses shows that 67.12% of respondents from companies where the

Internet is used for searching for information on regulations consider one of the future

benefits of the use of IT is redefining the roles in organizations. Meanwhile, only 25% of those not using the Internet to search information on regulations assume the same thing.

Correlation between the use of the Internet for information disclosure and

dematerialization of the documents and procedures



It follows from this analysis that people who use the Internet for information disclosure

believe that one effect of the use of IT is the dematerialization of documents and

procedures. This is logical from our point of view, as the Internet operates with intangible

procedures and documents.

Analyzing the results of the empirical study, we notice that 80% of those who use the

Internet for information disclosure believe that the use of IT in the future will lead to dematerialization of documents and procedures. 62.5% of the respondents from the

companies that do not use the Internet for information disclosure believe the same thing.

Correlation between the use of the Internet for information disclosure and the change

in the information system, internal control and governance





Distribution of responses shows that 96.97% of those who use the Internet for information

disclosure believe that the use of IT in the future will have no impact on the articulation of

information systems, internal control and governance. Only 84.62% of respondents who do

not use the Internet for information disclosure responded in the same way.

Correlation between the decisive criterion in choosing computer applications

purchased in the company and the computerization of the inter-organizational relations



We believe that the reason the decisive factor in choosing software applications purchased

and inter-organizational computerization are related is that one of the criteria may be its use

by the other companies in the group, the purchase of a site may be conditioned by the

possibility that the stock of the main supplier can be seen etc.

On the basis of responses we notice that 90.24% of those who considered as the decisive

criterion in choosing software the references received considered that in future the

computerized inter-organizational relations will be used. Meanwhile, 88.89% of those who

had the decisive criterion in choosing the quality-cost ratio gave the same answer.

Correlation between the decisive factor in choosing software applications purchased

in the company and the benefits achieved by implementing software applications

We note that the threshold of significance obtained (p = 0.00092) is less than 0.05, which

means that a statistically significant correlation is obtained.

We consider that this correlation was obtained because one of the decisive criteria in

selecting software applications purchased is expected future benefits from their

deployment.

Distribution of responses allows drawing the following conclusions: 66.67% of those who

had the decisive criterion in choosing purchased computer applications the references

received considered that the benefits achieved by implementing the applications meet their

expectations 100%, 11.90% believe that they met expectations as a percentage of 75-99%

and 0-75% the difference in proportion. Of those who had the decisive criterion in choosing

applications the quality-cost ratio 33.33% believe that the benefits achieved by

implementing the applications meet their expectations 100%, 61.11% consider that they

met expectations as a percentage of 75-99% and 0-75% the difference in proportion.

After analyzing the results, we can say that the null hypothesis is rejected. Thus, we state

that there is a relationship of dependency between the decision to use IT within a firm and

its impact on the organization and functioning of the company.

Q5: There is a relationship between the existence of Internet within a company and it’s use for various purposes

To test this hypothesis, I launched the following null hypothesis:

Q50: The existence of the Internet within a company and using it for various purposes are

independent



To test the hypothesis I formulated the following questions: question III.2. (Var. 13), question III.3. (Var. 14), question III.3. (Var. 15), question III.3. (Var. 16), question III.3.

(Var. 17), question III.3. (Var. 18), question III.3. (Var. 19), question III.3. (Var. 20).

Correlation between the existence of the Internet within a company and using it for

consulting bank accounts and the transactions on-line

We note that the threshold of significance obtained (p = 0.0046) is less than 0.05, which

means that a statistically significant correlation is obtained.

We believe that the existence of this correlation indicates that in many companies there are

applications which help you view the transactions and bank accounts online. This can be

explained by the time savings generated by using these services, charging lower fees to the

bank, free provision of such services by the bank etc.

Distribution of responses shows that 69.23% of respondents in cases where there is Internet

answered that it is used for consulting bank accounts and the transactions online. Only 28.57% of respondents in companies where there is no Internet gave the same response.

In conclusion, we can say that there is a relationship of dependency between the existence

of the Internet within a company and using it for various purposes.

Conclusions

The objective of this study was to prove the impact of IT on the company. In this sense, the

hypotheses were launched:


computerization

Q2: There is a relationship of dependency between the activities of the firm and its degree

of computerization

Q3: There is a relationship of dependency between the level of staff training and the use of

IT within the company

Q4: There is a relationship of dependency between the decision to use IT within a firm and

its impact on the organization and functioning of the company

Q5: There is a relationship between the existence of Internet within a company and its use

for various purposes.

After empirical testing, hypotheses Q1, Q4 and Q5 were confirmed, while Q2 and Q3 were

rejected. We believe that one reason for rejecting the hypothesis Q2 could be spread areas

of activity of firms, but also that all firms, regardless of the field, are using IT. Regarding

hypothesis Q3, a reason to reject it may be that staff was qualified for different types of IT

skills (for example, we included in the questionnaire the Internet and Excel, which can be

used almost by everyone).

It is not easy to determine the impact of IT on the economist’s profession. One thing is

certain: the traditional role of the economist is minimized because, with the ERPs, his tasks

can be easily transferred to other persons such as computer operators or secretaries. We



believe that all employees are improving following the introduction of ERP or the impact of

IT in this sector of business.

The idea of the empirical study can be repeated in future. A study could be done on the

impact of IT to specific company divisions (eg, sales, production) or other types of entities

(eg public-sector entities).

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by CNCSIS –UEFISCSU, project number ID 1779 Romania

facing a new challenge: accessing the structural funds for the sustainable development in

agriculture. The convergence of financial reporting of the native entities with the European

realities, PNII – IDEI code/2008

References

Albu, C., 2006. Reflecţii asupra profilului posturilor de conducere în domeniul financiar-

contabil: o abordare bazată pe competenţe. In: CECCAR, Congresul al XVI-lea al

profesiei contabile din România – “Profesia contabila si Globalizarea”. Bucharest,

Romania, 15-16 September 2006. Bucharest: CECCAR.

Blackaby, J.R., Greeno, P. and Chenhall, R.G.., 1995. The revised nomenclature for museum cataloging: A revised and expanded version of Robert G. Chenall's system for

classifying man-made objects. Walnut Creek, California: AltaMira Press.

Bollecker, M., 2000. Contrôleur de gestion: une profession à dimension relationnelle?. In:

Association Francophone de Comptabilite, XXIème congrès de l'AFC. Angers, France.

Burns, J. and Baldvinsdottir, G., 2005. An Institutional Perspective of Accountants’ New

Roles – The Interplay of Contradictions and Praxis. European Accounting Review,

14(4), pp. 725-757.

Caglio, A., 2003. Enterprise Resource Planning systems and accountants: towards

hybridization?. European Accounting Review, 12(1), pp. 123-153.

Chtioui, T., 2006. Does The Standardization Of Business Processes Improve Management?

The Case of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems. In: M. Bellalah, J.-L. Prigent and J.-M. Sahut, eds. 2008. Risk Management and Value :Valuation and Asset Pricing, World Scientific

Studies in International Economics. Vol. 3. Singapore : WorldScientific Publishing Co.

Pte. Ltd., pp. 601-614.

Debreceney, R. and Gray, G.L., 2001. The production and use of semantically rich

accounting reports on the Internet: XML and XBRL. International Accounting

Information Systems, 2(1), pp. 47-74.

Dechow, N. and Mouritsen, J., 2005. Enterprise resource planning systems, management

control and the quest for integration. Accounting, Organizations, and Society, 30(7-8),

pp. 691-733.

Dewan, S. and Kraemer, K.L., 1998. Information Technology and Productivity: Evidence

from Country-Level Data. s.l.: Center for Research on Information Technology and

Organizations.



Dumitru, V. and Florescu, V., 2008. L’implantation de l’ERP : Facteurs cles de succes et impacte sur la performance, Analele Universitatii din Oradea - Seria Stiinte

Economice, Tom XVII, [online]. Available at :

<http://steconomice.uoradea.ro/anale/volume/2008/v4-management-marketing/v4-

management-and-marketing.pdf> [Accessed 7 Octomber 2011].

Florescu, V., 2008. Lien entre l’usage des TIC et la performance de l’entreprise: concepts

fondamentaux et modeles de recherché. Bucharest: AMIS.

Huber, G., 1990. A Theory of the Effects of Advanced Information Technologies on

Organizational Design, Intelligence, and Decision Making. Academy of Management

Review, 15(1), pp. 47-71.

Hyvönen, T., Jarvinen, J., Pellinen, J. and Rahko, T., 2006. The influence of accounting

hybridisation on ERP implantation. Case Finnish Defence Forces. In: European

Accounting Association, The 29th Annual Congress of the European Accounting

Association. Dublin, Ireland, 22-24 March 2006. Dublin: European Accounting

Association.

Hyvönen, T., 2003. Management Accounting and Information Systems: ERP versus BOB.

European Accounting Review, 12(1), pp. 155-173.

Jouirou, N. and Kalika, M., 2004. L’alignement strategique: determinant de la performance

(etude empirique sur les Pme). In: AIM, 9eme Colloque de l’AIM. Evry, France, 26-28 May 2004. Evry: AIM.

Kurunmäki, L., 2004. A hybrid profession – the acquisition of management accounting

expertise by medical professionals. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 29(3-4), pp.

327-347.

Locke, J. and Lowe, A., 2007. XBRL: An (Open) Source of Enlightenment or Disillusion?,

European Accounting Review, 16(3), pp. 585-623.

Mahmood, M.A. and Mann, G.J., 2000. Impacts of Information Technology Investment on

Organizational Investment. Journal of Management Information Systems, 17(1), pp. 3-

10.

O’Brien, J.A., 1999. Management Information Systems. Managing Information Technology

in the Internet worked Entreprise. Boston: McGraw-Hill.

OCDE, 2000. Perspectives économiques de l´OCDE: Quels sont les facteurs qui

soustendent la croissance dans les différents pays de l ´OCDE?

Reix, R., 2002. Système d’information et management des organizations. 4eme edition.,

Paris: Vuibert.

Russell, K.A., Siegel., G.H. and Kulesza, C.S., 1999. Counting More, Counting Less.

Strategic Finance, September Iss., pp. 39-44.

Scapens, R.W. and Jazayeri, M., 2003. ERP systems and management accounting change:

opportunities or impacts? A research note, European Accounting Review, 12(1), pp.

201-233.

Scott, W.R., 1995. Introduction. institutional theory and organizations. In: W.R. Scott and

S. Cristiansen, eds. 1995. The institutional construction of organizations. International

and longitudinal studies. London: Sage, pp. xi-xxiii.

Stanciu, V. and Mangiuc, D., 2006. AudiSmart – Software tool for audit missions.

Bucharest: AMIS.



Surcel, T. and Bologa, R., 2008. The ERP capabilities for enhancing the logistic system

integration, Amfiteatru Economic, X(24), pp. 84-93.

Tugui, I. and Tugui, A., 2002. Consideraţii cu privire la auditarea conturilor anuale în

medii informatizate, In: CECCAR. Congresul CECCAR. Bucharest, Romania,

September 2002. Bucharest: CECCAR.

Velcu, O., 2008. A model of organizational and implantation factors that enable the

benefits of ERP systems. In: Erasmus University Rotterdam, The 31st Annual Congress

of the European Accounting Association. Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 23-25 April

2008. Rotterdam: European Accounting Association.

Verdaasdonk, P. and Wouters, M., 1999. Defining an information structure to analyse

resource spending changes of Operations Management Decisions. Production Planning

& Control, 10(2), pp. 162-174.

Verstegen, B.H.J. et al., 2005. An empirical classification of management accountants by

activities. Working Paper.



MUTATIONS IN THE FOODSTUFF QUALITY PERCEPTION

OF THE NEW CONSUMERS IN ROMANIA

Dorin Popescu

1, Mihai Negrea

2 and Lelia Voinea

3

1)2)3) Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

In the current context of the market, very complex and dynamic, we can observe the

crystallization of a new generation of consumers, with a specific behavior and a particular

manner of approaching the quality unlike the one of traditional consumer. The concept of

quality, perceived by the traditional consumer in the classical, deterministic and objective sense, loses its facets nowadays and transcends into another dimension, in the vision of the

new consumer, in which the perception of quality in a predominantly subjective manner,

comes first.

This paper presents the objectives of a research project that we intend to develop, in order

to highlight the mutations that occurred in the foodstuff quality perception of the new

consumers from Romania. We focused on foodstuff because it is a customary part of our

daily lives, that shouldn’t be approached merely as a common factor for meeting

physiological needs of macro and micro-nutrients, but from a holistic perspective in terms

of its social and identity functions and the effects on individual health.

Another important goal of the project is to improve the standard of education and culture in

foodstuff consumption and to give to the new consumers from Romania the skills for an

objective assessment of food quality. We believe that all these could lead to the conversion of the new consumers of foodstuff in ethical and responsible consumers.

Keywords: new consumer, quality perception, mutations, foodstuff, ethical consumerism

JEL Classification: P46

Introduction

Consumer behavior has changed greatly over the last 25 years, but it has been evolutionary

and the seeds of change have been apparent for generations (Kar, 2010).

Mutations occurring in the new type consumer’s perception of quality should not be

understood as a quickly process or easy to locate in time. In any case, we believe that the

origin of these changes in consumer mind is found through the '70s, is somewhat related to

the previous occurrence of the concept of consumer protection and consumer rights statement.

Corresponding author, Lelia Voinea - [email protected]

AE Mutations in the Foodstuff Quality Perception of the New Consumers in Romania


So after some researchers, the quality depends on the extent to which the characteristics of

a certain product correspond with the mental representation (symbolically speaking) of the

consumer or customer’s preferences and expectations. Subsequently, Ishikawa (1986)

developed the definition of offering quality and consumer preferences/expectations.

Obviously, under these conditions, we talk about two distinct levels, two manifestations of

the same phenomenon: on one hand is a mostly objective, namely the inherent quality of

the product as a result of the level reached by certain characteristics (physical, chemical,

nutritional, economic, aesthetic, ergonomics etc.), often prescribed data sheets, standards

etc., and on the other side is a largely subjective, as a result of the perception of quality by

the consumer. We also believe that there can be no complete identity between the two sides.

Subjective side of the new consumer will always surpass the objective side, which is

beyond his expectations (Negrea and Voinea, 2010).

This way of thinking can be explained by the fact that the new consumer expects to receive

more than what is conventionally a generic product. Also, the trademark symbol plays a

very important role (Levy and Rook, 1999).

The novelty of the project is the research of the conceptual transpositions regarding the

definition of food quality in the mind of the new consumer of foodstuff from Romania, the

proposed project being justified by the observation of mutations occurring in addressing

quality and in the alimentary behavior.

1. Objectives and research methodology

Understanding the changes in the definition of the attribute of food quality among the new

generation of consumers requires, first, an analysis of the general concept of quality, in all stages of its evolution: the statistical control of quality, the quality inspection, total quality

management and excellence in business.

Since the concept of food quality is a complex and integrating concept, one of the project’s

objectives is researching the mutations occurred in its evolution, with emphasis on the clear

delimitation of the hypostasis in which it occurred over time: technical quality, nutritional

quality, sensory quality and hygienic and sanitary quality.

Noting the two-way relationship between the supply and demand for foodstuff, we consider

it as necessary to conduct a study regarding the development trends of food supply in

Romania. The study aims to capture the reorientation of consumer demand, to highlight the

changes in food supply in the industrial era and also to identify the new trends of

diversification of food production.

Knowing that human-food interaction is subject to objective and subjective influences, of a personal, national and international nature, an important objective of the project is to

analyze the determinants of food behavior, starting from a series of conceptual

clarifications and then highlighting the main behavioral types of the food consumer, as well

as the contemporary food styles.

Considering that, in the current context of the foodstuffs market in Romania, we can

distinguish two types of consumers, a traditional consumer and a new type and noting that

their behavioral differences arise from the individual perception of food quality, we believe



that one of the most important research directions is in highlighting the changes the attribute of quality in the consumer mind, including at the same time the main elements of

synergy and antagonism.

An important contribution of the research project is the formulation of proposals regarding

the development of the current strategies of information and education of the new foodstuff

consumer in Romania, in terms of adopting a balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle. In this

regard, we suggest the adoption of ethical consumerism as a possible behavior model of the

new consumer, as well as developing a guide for the orientation of his food related

behavior.

To achieve the objectives, the methodologies used are reflected in appropriate and effective

methods and techniques of investigation and research, as to ensure the reproducibility and a

representative nature of the obtained results.

The interdisciplinary approach, involving the harmonious use of knowledge from different fields such as quality science, quality management, commodity science, food commodity

science, consumer science and consumer protection, gives the project an elevated degree of

novelty and complexity, supported by combining market research techniques and of

methods of information, documentation, processing and data analysis.

2. Importance and relevance of the project

Food is one of the main carriers of environmental information, being essential in the

functioning of the human body. In this respect, the quality of food is what matters

essentially in preventing disease and maintaining health.

Thus, the concept of food quality is complex, absorbing, encompassing over time a series of

situations: technical quality, nutritional quality, sensorial quality, hygienic and sanitary quality.

Highlighting the major shifts in the definition and perception of quality of food by

consumers is key goal of research.

Thus, in operationalizing the concept of food quality, the starting point was the technical

quality, expressed through a series of quality characteristics, among which, the primary role

was held by physicochemical and microbiological characteristics, measurable by objective

methods, usually standardized.

In this context, the attribute of food quality was perceived by the consumer according to a

referential (laws, standards and technical regulations).

The nutritional quality is a higher stage in the perception and definition of food quality,

because the satisfaction of energetic and biological needs of the consumer are the main

concerns. At this stage, the consumer no longer views the quality of the product strictly in terms of its inherent technical characteristics, being more interested in its nutritional profile.

This mutation occurred as a result of changes in modern lifestyle, materialized, in

particular, through the consumer exposure to an intense mental demand, but also due to an

increase in degenerative diseases, as a result of various nutritional mistakes (Popescu,

2006).



Sensorial quality is another aspect of food quality, being the one that determines

consumer’s sympathy for certain products, this being crucial in motivating purchase and

consumption decisions. The sensorial value is expressed through attributive and notional

quality characteristics, which cannot be always determined by objective means; hence the

high degree on subjectivity in the perception on quality by consumers. Although it is widely

known that the agreeable sensorial properties of food contributes to increasing assimilation

of nutrients in the body, we believe that absolutization of their role in evaluating quality by

the consumer may result in the appearance of a nutritional imbalance, because a food

product with special psihosensorial bonds does not always have a balanced nutritional

profile at the same time.

Currently, the hygienic quality, another dimension of food quality tends to acquire

overwhelming importance, due to repeated food crisis in industrialized states (mad cow disease, avian influenza), which marked the last decades and generated an exacerbation of

consumer preoccupation for the hygienic and sanitary food safety. Today, the consumer

perceives in an acute way the nutrition quality through food innocuity. Thus, assuring the

hygienic and sanitary quality implies minimizing biological, chemical or allergic risks that

can seriously affect consumer’s health.

In this context, to ensure innocuity of food throughout the food chain (from farm to fork)

various food safety management systems were designed and implemented, some of which

are: HACCP system (Hazard Analysis in Critical Control Points) and the system promoted

by the ISO 22000/2005 standard (Food safety management systems, requirements for every

organization in the food chain). Similar to the “zero defects” principle from the quality

management theory, these systems desire to achieve “zero risks” in assuring food innocuity.

Lately noticing a watershed in the consumers’ attitude towards the offer of food products,

characterized by the increasing attraction for cultural and traditional food, distrust for

products obtained by genetic engineering techniques (OMG), as well as for food obtained

through intensive agricultural techniques, industrially ultra-processed and widely ranged

especially through food additives and respectively high sympathy towards organic products,

one of the project’s objectives is doing a study on the development tendencies of the

Romanian food products offer.

The trend in development of cultural food supply is a response to consumers’ shift in

demand for organic food products. We can distinguish various categories of cultural food:

traditional food, traditional food with a controlled designation of origin and organic

traditional food.

Although the consumer tendency to shift their demand organic food products has become a reality, today, the preponderant offer of food had its origin in the industrial period, when

intensive agricultural and animal husbandry technologies enabled the development of a

strong food industry. Also, in this period, the fast-food, cans and semi-cooked meals

industry, conquered the market, but at the same time, they brought along the modern

civilization’s diseases (Olinescu, 2006).

Thus, agri-food materials, obtained through extensive use of fertilizers, pesticides, growth

hormones and antibiotics, are highly processed, which results in the production of

contaminated food that is depleted of its essential nutrients (Toma et al., 2010).



In addition, the sensorial characteristics of food are not always natural, because of products with artificial taste, aroma, color and texture, due to the use of food additives, the

consequence being the extension of a range of goods with an unbalanced nutritional profile

(Voinea, 2009).

Regarding the renewal of the food product offer, it relies on the application of research

and innovation results in the food industry, process in which we can distinguish the

dominant tendencies of diversification, the attainment of genetically modified food and,

respectively, of functional products (Pamfilie and Voinea, 2009).

Analysis of alimentary determinatives behavior is another project objective that is justified

by identifying the existence of a two-way relationship between supply and demand of food,

relationship that can generate a certain type of nutrition among consumers, who can opt for

a meat based alimentation, omnivorous or vegetarian. Thus, a consumer’s type of nutrition

is defined by a diet consistently practiced throughout life or, at least, for prolonged periods of time, this being determined by specific physiological features or factors related to food

habits , traditions, religious beliefs, ways of access to food (Popescu, 2009).

Starting by knowing the contemporary food styles, we can distinguish between a traditional

consumer of alimentary goods and one of a new type. Thus, accepting the fact that each of

them has a specific food behavior, we state that the behavioral differences that occur due to

the particular perception of food quality, thus we propose to highlight the mutations in the

mentality of food consumers in Romania.

In the traditional consumer’s mentality, the quality perception is decisively influenced by

the technical aspects, the product’s sensorial side remaining in the second plane. This

approach is the result of knowledge and information gained successively through education

and settled through professional and personal experience. Also characteristic to this consumer is the way of understanding non-quality, which translates into his mentality

through non-compliance with specifications and/or rules in force.

“The new consumer”- depicted as an individual consumer - is seduced by the sensorial side

in evaluating the food product’s quality. The role of sensorial perception should not be

downplayed or approached in a simplistic manner, since all that is conscious reach us

through sensorial perception (Jung, 1994).

The new consumer formed his eating habits during the time of maximum boost in the food

industry and is generally accustomed to eating products created by the modern food

industry, characterized by the special sensorial properties, but not always with a nutritional

balanced profile. These images are stored in the memory of the “new consumer”.

Therefore, the possibility of gaining its knowledge, which requires the comparison between

the perceived images of the food product and those from memories, is evidently limited. This would explain the “new consumer’s” propensity to generalize the sensorial properties’

role in configuring the quality of a food product and neglecting or even disdaining

nutritional and technical properties.

In the new consumer’s mind, the image of a food product’s quality can be formed as a

result of influences from the new means of communication. With the aid of Internet

facilities, “the new consumer” can join a group, whose members can exchange ideas about,

among other things, the quality of food they consume. This type of online conversations is

controlled by consumers. The Internet boom accelerated and intensified this behavior to



high levels, and small group discussions developed into a mass phenomenon, which brings

together hundreds or thousands of unknown users (Negrea, 2007).

Currently, the new consumer is characterized by Internet addiction, the media that enjoyed

a growing confidence on the part of consumers and from which it gets information that it

directs the buying decision (Onete, Voinea, and Dina, 2010). Consumer choices are made

increasingly more and more on the basis of social media information. In addition to

deciphering the advertising message and reading the websites of companies, consumers use

different online formats (forums, chats, blogs, etc.) to share ideas, to form communities and

to contact their peers.

As pointed by Kozinets (2010) social media is increasingly seen as a more objective source

of information and all these communities have a real existence to their members and

therefore have effect on many aspects of behavior, including alimentary behavior.

The mutations noted in the food consumer’s mentality involves a certain amount of

antagonism between the traditional and the new type of consumer, manifested through the

different importance given to the technical and sensorial aspects of the food product’s

quality. Nevertheless, we draw attention to the fact that, at a primary level - that of meeting

nutritional needs – both types of consumers manifest synergism, through the equal

importance granted to the nutritional value of food, namely the hygienic-sanitary value, the

other aspects of food quality.

In the context of contouring the new consumer’s mentality, we note that current consumers

are more and more sophisticated and have a more and more powerful influence, and

producers – if they want to maintain their positions – they must follow the market. A trend

which gains more and more amplitude among consumers, especially in the Western states, is that of ethical consumerism (Negrea, 2008).

Currently, one can observe that ethical consumerism takes amplitude and is no longer a

niche market, as it once was considered. However, this shift in consumer behavior is visible

only in some Western countries, where the standard of living allows the development of

such behavior (Stanciu, 2008). History will confirm (or not) how quickly this current will

be transmitted to other states, which do not have the same level of development and,

especially, how the ethical consumerism model will be accepted in Romania.

Noticing that in the contemporary consumer’s alimentation there is a series of unhealthy

habits, manifested by excessive consumption of animal proteins, saturated fat, salt and

sugar, we consider useful to develop an orientation guide on food consumption behavior,

which can be based on proper nutrition laws (law of quantity, law of quality, law of

equilibrium, law of suitability).

3. Results

The main research results, which also constitute elements of project originality, can be

considered the following:

Elaboration of studies and syntheses, following the investigation of the literature in

the field, which will allow for the assessment of the permanent status of research on the

project’s topic;



Demarcation from a conceptual point of view of the main aspects of food quality;

Identifying future research priorities to improve food quality and safety;

Highlighting the changes in food supply in the industrial era;

Investigation of new trends to diversify the supply of foodstuff;

Making a comparative analysis of the types of behavior and the contemporary styles

of nutrition;

Identifying key elements of synergy and antagonism in the perception of the food

quality by the traditional consumer and the new-type consumer;

Highlighting the changes of the attribute of food quality in the mentality of the new

consumer in Romania;

The reorientation of the new food consumer’s behavior by adopting the model of

ethical consumerism;

Developing a guide regarding the development among food consumers of a balanced

food behavior, based on the laws of proper nutrition.

The project will have a powerful technical, economic and social impact and also a

considerable impact on the environment.

Conclusions

The research of conceptual transpositions occurring in the modern consumer’s mind will be

the starting point for generating new approaches to food quality in terms of sustainable

economic development ethics (concern for the environment, preserving resources and

traditions, etc.). Deciphering these transpositions will help us develop a model of food

consumption and, perhaps, change the mentality of consumers in the beginning of the third millennium.

In order that new generations of consumers in Romania acquire the behavioral traits of the

new consumer from developed countries, primarily is needed to increase their education

level. An essential component of consumer education is represented by nutritional

education, through which is possible to restore the nutritional guidelines for adopting a

healthy diet, based on principles of a balanced alimentation and to transform them into

responsible consumers.

The research project will have implications for both academic and practitioners in the field

of human nutrition and alimentary behavior and could be a landmark in formulating future

strategies to improve the nutritional education level of the new consumers from Romania.

Acknowledgements

This work was cofinanced from the European Social Fund through Sectorial Operational

Programme Human Resources Development 2007-2013 project number POSDRU



/89/1.5/S/59184 “Performance and excellence in postdoctoral research in Romanian

economics science domain”.

References

Ishikawa, K., 1986. Guide to Quality Control.2nd ed. Tokyo: Asian Productivity

Organization.

Jung, C.G., 1994. Puterea sufletului. Antologie, (Prima parte – Psihologia

analitică.Temeiuri). București: Editura Anima.

Kar, M., 2010. Consumer behaviour over the last 25 years. Oxirm Research Themes,

Oxford Institute of Retail Management, The Retail Digest, pp 46-53.

Kozinets, R., 2010. The Field Behind the Screen: Using Netnography For Marketing

Research in Online Communities. Journal of Marketing Research, Issue 39, pp. 61-72.

Levy, S. and Rook, D., 1999. Brands, Consumers, Symbols and Research. New York: Sage

Publications.

Negrea, M., 2007. New style in communication between consumers. In: Poznan University

of Economics, The 9th IComSC “Current trends in Commodity Science”. Poznan,

Poland, 27-29 August 2007. Poznan: The Poznan University Economics Publishing

House.

Negrea, M., 2008. Ethical Consumerism and the British Path. Amfiteatru Economic, X(23),

pp. 50-54.

Negrea, M. and Voinea, L., 2010. Quality perception in the new consumer’s vision. In: The


Challanges of the Future: Excellence in Business and Commodity Science”. Bucharest, Romania, 21-25 September 2010. Bucharest: ASE Publishing House.

Olinescu, R., 2006. Totul despre alimentaţia sănătoasă. București: Editura Niculescu.

Onete, B. and Popescu, D., 2010. Shifting quality concepts and paradigms. In: The


Challanges of the Future: Excellence in Business and Commodity Science”, Bucharest,

Romania, 21-25 September 2010. Bucharest: ASE Publishing House.

Onete, B., Voinea, L. and Dina, R., 2010. Dimensions and Evolutions of the New

Consumer Concept in Romania. Current Issues in Business and Law Journal, 5(2), pp.

341-355.

Pamfilie, R. and Voinea, L., 2009. Innovation management – applications in the foodstuff

offer field. Calitatea – acces la success,10(7-8).

Popescu, D., 2006. Alimentaţie şi igiena mărfurilor. București: Editura ASE.

Popescu, D., 2009. Mutations concerning the alimentary behavior in the context of the

actual economic crisis. Metalurgia International, XIV(11).

Stanciu, C., 2008. Managementul relaţiei cu consumatorii la nivelul Uniunii Europene.

Calitatea – acces la succes, Issue 94.

Todt, H., 2009. Some Aspects of the Economic Crisis. Amfiteatru Economic, XI (Special

issue 3), pp 667-674.



Toma, S.G., Stanciu, C. and Irimia, E., 2010. Study on the Information Level of Pupils and Parents Regarding the Effects of Unhealthy Food Consumption. Amfiteatru Economic,

XII(28), pp 420-435.

Voinea, L., 2009. Ştiinţa alimentelor – o abordare din perspectiva consumatorului.

București: Editura ASE.

AE The Psycho-sensorial Value of the Food Products – a Provocative Component in Purchase Decision


THE PSYCHO-SENSORIAL VALUE OF THE FOOD PRODUCTS – A

PROVOCATIVE COMPONENT IN PURCHASE DECISION

Magdalena Bobe1

and Roxana Procopie2

1),2) Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

The psycho-sensorial value is a specific, complex and determinant concept of the food

products that is reflected by means of psycho-sensorial properties such as: shape, size,

aspect, colour, taste, smell, fragrance, bouquet, density, clarity. The assessment of these

properties by the consumers is decisive for the acceptance or the rejection of foods and

classifies the products into savoury, or non-savoury, attractive, indifferent, or unattractive.

The psycho-sensorial features of food products allow us to make quick assessments of their

qualities, but with a high degree of subjectivity among the common consumers and big

individual variations, assessments that are highly influenced by the hedonic value of food

products. The sensory analysis of foods is part of the modern analytical methods: when correctly and

scientifically applied, it allows a real assessment of the quality of these products, evaluation

which could not be obtained only by assessing physicochemical and microbiological

methods.

However, the scientific methods for sensorial assessment have a higher degree of

objectivity and are used successfully in industry and trade, in evaluating the qualitative

level of foods by authorised and qualified people.

Otherwise, the design of the psycho-sensorial value of food products involves tests and

sensorial analyses and has as main objective the establishment of concordances among the

consumers’ demands and the level of the sensorial characteristics of the products.

The present paper aims at underlining the necessity to design the psycho-sensorial value of processed foods, as well as the importance of educating and informing the consumers for a

better capacity to get oriented on the market, and implicitly, for a right purchase decision.

Keywords: food products, psycho-sensorial value, purchase decision, consumer, design

JEL Classification: D 18, L 66, L 81

Corresponding author, Magdalena Bobe - [email protected]




Introduction

The modern concept of the nutritional value of products underlines the inseparable nature

of its four components: the psycho-sensorial value, the energetic value, the biological value

and the hygienic one, playing an important role in evaluating the quality of the food

products when they reach the market.

The vital role of foods in human life is reflected by these specific aspects of the nutritive

value. Besides filling the organism’s demands for energy and active biological substances,

food products also have to give psycho-sensorial satisfaction while they are consumed, to

meet hygienic and innocuity requests that ensure the population’s health. These demands

are filled in a very close interdependence with the product’s structure, chemical

composition and features.

Modelling the psycho-sensorial value of food products represents, at present, the essential

condition in order to obtain food that can be sold, a priority of the producers in the food industry and a basic request of consumers.

The evolution in the sciences involved in human nutrition has imposed the knowledge of

the main form by which the relation between human being and food manifests itself,

namely: giving nutritive material; the possibility to handle pathogen agents; the psycho-

sensorial bond (affective).

The ways in which the human-food relation manifests itself have presented in the order

they appeared along time, according to the historical criterion. However, if the interest in

man’s health had been taken into consideration, these would have had to be ranked as

follows: salubrious, nutritive, and pleasant. Although innocuity and the nutritive value of a

foods product are essential conditions for health and life, many people rank first the

psycho-sensorial value of products, „the pleasure offered by the consumption of a food product”.

In order to understand this disagreement we have to the reasons that make the consumer

give more importance to the psycho-sensorial properties of the food product than to the risk

(imperceptible) of getting ill or its trofins. Knowing the mechanism of the affective relation,

we can find solutions to correct some attitudes contrary to health and we can start people’s

education as regards food consumption behaviour, all these influencing the choice and

consumption of food products.

1. Psycho-sensorial value – condition of food products’ attractiveness

The psycho-sensorial value of food products, the sensorial and aesthetic values,

respectively, is the one that invites one to buy a product, and gives its attractiveness. In

fact, sensorial properties are, for the common buyer, the first criterion to evaluate quality, influencing the selection and acceptability of the food products, that, most of the times, are

highly subjective.

In order to express the psycho-sensorial value there are methods which help to quantify and

express it in a graphical manner, such as the score method, the profile method, that give us

the possibility to compare products.



The general features that define the psycho-sensorial value of the food products are: colour,

smell, taste, fragrance, shape, aspect, size, texture, density, firmness, elasticity, freshness,

tenderness (by chewing), and palatability features (taste effects while chewing and after

chewing). There are also features specific to groups of products such as clarity – for liquid

products, the juiciness of the pulp, its turgor and freshness – for fruits and vegetables.

The psycho-sensorial value of food products is influenced by internal factors, specific to the

products, such as the solubility of their chemical components, their melting point, and the

product’s temperature. For example the structure-textural density or firmness of fruits and

vegetables is a dynamic property that represents the intensity of the connection between

their structure and texture; it is related to their maturity, the intensity of the enzyme activity,

the turgor degree.

In food products one can notice the change of the psycho-sensorial features in different stages of the product’s manufacturing or life cycle, which makes it different according to

manufacturing or life cycle stage the product is in.

For example, some products undergo important changes in their maturation stage:

meat – its maturation is a process that influences and improves its psycho-sensorial

value; meat gets a soft density, becoming more juicy and tender, with very pleasant taste

and its colour changes from red to light red;

cheese products – their maturation gives different assortments, under certain

circumstances, the characteristic taste, smell and colour, the paste becoming softer, more

oily, with pleasant taste and smell; during this stage cheese products undergo biochemical

and physical changes. There are deep changes, when the taste, the smell are formed (due to

the accumulation of the fragrance substances), as well as the density (that is rubbery, compact, elastic in the beginning and becomes more tender, oily); the drawing is also

formed (fermentation stitches, according to the assortment) that gives us information when

analysing the section of a slice of cheese;

fruits and vegetables get their final psycho-sensorial characteristics, getting a

harmonious psycho-sensorial value. Fruits and vegetables maturation represents a dynamic

physiological and biochemical process, that turns into shape, size, weight, pigmentation,

chemical composition, taste and smell;

wines amplify their psycho-sensorial value during the ageing process, when the

harmonization of the sensorial characteristics takes place, these becoming velvet-like, and

the wine getting a better bouquet.

The consumers’ reactions to the psycho-sensorial value of food products depend on:

perception – the evaluation of the foods qualities and their choice is eased when the

psycho-sensorial characteristics are appropriate;

motivation – can influence the consumers’ wish representing a motivation in the

decision-making process;

feeling- attractiveness leads to the acceptance of food products, the appropriate

psycho-sensorial value of foods, making them pleasant and wanted; for example, when



choosing vegetal products, consumers take into account the correspondence between colour, the maturity degree and freshness;

experience – consumers express their preferences according to their experience, they

can establish which psycho-sensorial characteristics are normal, natural and indicate the

foods properties based on other similar products;

thinking – new food products can be accepted by consumers if the latter are

explained the former’s properties and if they can notice them personally.

2. Synergism – a principle based on which the psycho-sensorial value is modelled

If consumers’ preferences can be modelled via large promotional campaigns and supported

by authorised socio-economic structures, producers’ attitude must take into account the new

issues raised by the modern requirements in human nutrition, therefore to be based on a

nutritive projection of the food products, focused on modern nutrition norms and requirements.

The nutritive value defines the correlation between the psycho-sensorial, energetic,

biological and hygienic values, including them in a total that is the prerequisite of a food

product’s success on the market. The psycho-sensorial value, the first one to be perceived

by the consumers, represents an important aspect of the total quality of food products that

can weigh as much as 50% -60% from the general quality factor. The psycho-sensorial

value of food products influences their selection from the available offer and the purchasing

decision-making process. In many cases food products are selected by the consumers

exclusively based on the satisfaction they offer, leaving aside the energetic, biological and

hygienic value.

Nutritional modelling of food products is possible only if we use the most appropriate models to determine and express the nutritional values of food products that allow their

correct evaluation. This methodology must answer the issues raised by the design both of

the psycho-sensorial and hygienic value of processed food and the biological and energetic

values.

.The more intense market segmentation, therefore of food consumption as well, makes it

necessary for the producer to know the distinct and relatively complex needs of the most

various segments of consumers, and, in order to fill these needs it is necessary to make

products that are appropriate form a qualitative point of view, which involves, in the case of

food products, underlining their psycho-sensorial value as well. Thus, it became necessary

to find out some ways to determine and express the psycho-sensorial value that can easily

be applied and can lead to a correct and useful interpretation of results.

The psycho-sensorial value of food products can be assessed by means of sensorial

examination and via methods that are specific to sensorial analysis. Although it has a

special significance, having a high degree of subjectivity, there are many methods to

quantify the psycho-sensorial value, all these methods pursuing to increase the degree of

objectivity.

The most important categories of tests used to evaluate the acceptability for consumption of

food products are: assessment, comparison and selection.



The assessment of food products is the sensory examination of food which allows for the

discovery of various shades of their sensory characteristics by using a scale of values

(quotation). Fitting the food products into quality classes is done more accurately, as this

method of evaluation not only establishes differences but also measures them.

The comparison is the sensory examination carried out on foodstuff starting from an item

defined as basic or standard. In relation to it, analysts set the particular sensory attributes of

the other products analyzed. Thus, by relation to the base sample, table ranks of food can be

made.

The selection is the sensory examination which results in the elimination or choice,

rejection or preference.

The multiple forms of sensory examination of food led to their classification into two main

groups:

analytical testing - based on objective conditioned sensory perceptions, the

subjective assessment of the taster being negligible;

sensory quality control - relies more on purely psychological involuntary perceptions

and tends to assess the degree of subjective desire and the consumer quality of the

examined product; in other words, the control of the consumer value and the degree to

which the product will be accepted by consumers.

Table no. 1 contains a systematization of the main methods of sensory analysis.

Table no. 1: The systematization of main methods of sensory analysis

No. Tests/control

methods

Assessment

method

Choice of

experts

No. of

experts

Main domains

where it can be

applied

1. Twin test

Physiological Intensive special training

3-10

Basic research; diversifying

assortment (variation for the raw materials); assessment of the ways of processing and the influence of the packaging; expert education

2. Duo-trio test

3. Triangle test

4. Dilution method

Basic research: quality assessment; expert education

5. Profile method

Physiological and psychological

Professional education; obtaining the sensory minimum;

periodical checks

3-10

3-10

Basic research: warehouse experiences; quality assessment

6. Comparison method

Comparing to

samples; quality assessment; international contests 7. Rank sorting Needed for



method the groups of control experts

1-10 1-10

Quality contests; a condition for quality control; international contests

8. Point assessment

method

Coordination

Quality assessment; quality control within the company;

national and international contests

Source: after Diaconescu and Păunescu, 2003

While assessing the psycho-sensorial value of the food products, one can face aspects

related to: man’ sensorial abilities, the psycho-sensorial properties of foods products, the

dimensions and the influence of the social environment (education, tradition, circumstance,

fashion etc.).

The design of the psycho-sensorial value of processed food products must be done with

extreme care and should start from the study of the correlation with the other aspects of the

nutritional value, especially with the hygienic value. The design of the psycho-sensorial value should observe several stages:

the first stage – identifying the needs and demands of the real and prospective

consumers, that are in permanent change, influenced by many environmental factors

(fashion, tradition, culture, information, education etc.);

the second stage is represented by the product design itself and the establishment of

the psycho-sensorial potential of the food product;

during the third stage we decide upon the production recipe according to the pre-

established psycho-sensorial potential;

during the fourth stage we select the ingredients of the recipe: raw materials,

technological auxiliaries and additives, based on the qualitative assessment as regards

chemical composition, as well as the technological and psycho-sensorial qualities;

after we obtain the final product, it is highly important to choose the sensorial

analysis method, according to what goal there is. Sensorial analysis has the advantage that

it reflects the consumer’s reaction to the respective food product.

Foods psycho-sensorial value design and modelling is one main direction of research in

food industry that leads to an unprecedented expansion of the food products’ range. There

are many ways to intervene in modelling it, as any psycho-sensorial characteristic may

undergo changes – colour, taste, smell, density – but we can also act upon many

characteristics, thus getting many possible combinations. We can give only a few edifying

examples in this respect:

taste can be changed by different additives, natural or artificial; fruits, vegetables,

sugar, chocolate, leading to the appearance of improved products (cheese cream with pepper, herbs, garlic, onion, fruit yogurt, musli yogurt, margarine tasting like cheese, ham,

peaches, strawberries) or real new ones (rice with milk and fruit salad, rice with milk and

chocolate);



smell can be changed by adding natural or artificial fragrances (vanilla, peppermint,

cinnamon, etc);

density can be changed according to how the product is going to be used (yogurt to

drink);

colour can be changed by adding natural or synthetic dyes.

The psycho-sensorial value, very variable, can be designed and modelled experimentally, it

can be improved taking into account the consumers’ preferences, but also taking into

account the effects generated by the use of amendatory substances on the quality of the

product. The introduction of different additives (natural or artificial) in classical food

products changes their psycho-sensorial properties (aspect, colour, taste, smell, etc). The

change can envisage one component of the psycho-sensorial value, but it can also take

place in two, three or all the components, and thus the wide variety of variants that can be obtained. The easy ways to model the psycho-sensorial value widely explain the assortment

boom of the food products offer.

Many basic sensorial characteristics – as variables in modelling- can be combined to give

the consumer a holistic perception, resorting to synaesthesia that is the stimulation of a

sense by another one. In order to get a harmonious result we have to take into account

synergism as a principle in modelling the psycho-sensorial value of food products, as the

action of substances can be intensified by their association.

A harmonious psycho-sensorial value, designed and modelled according to rational

principles allows us to obtain products that meet consumers’ needs and satisfy their

demands, which will lead to their market success in competition with other products.

3. Nutritional education and information of the consumers

Preoccupations to improve the nutritional state of the population have a core position within

the programmes of health protection at national level, as well as at regional and

international level.

Nutritional education must be thought as an interference aiming to change social

communication in nutrition in order to improve the nutritional state in some segments of

population. The interferences, in order to be put into practice, claim the observance of the

action principles based on the following core ideas:

Equity : allowing a better social justice;

Participation: association of population groups in the decision-making processes;

Integrity: communication must be a support activity in the processes of development, orientation to improve eating habits;

Rationality: interferences must rely on a deep analysis of nutritional problems.

Knowing the psycho-sensorial value is decisive criterion in assessing food products’ quality

as well as a starting point that permits a better correlation of the offer with demand for

goods, thus ensuring their market success.



The product demand structure can be changed by better informing the consumers and by a nutritional education of the population.

The diversification of the media by means of which information is spread contributes very

much to this process. The main informative sources about nutrition are television, radio,

magazines, newspapers and best sellers, together with the advertisements associated with

them. All these are important means of nutritional education. Knowledge about a good

nutrition can be found in educational and informative texts, thus being internalised more

easily. However, the messages have to take into account the population’s preoccupations, as

a goo presentation of the possible choices and an exemplification of the lifestyle are vital to

ensure a satisfactory nutritional education.

Publicity campaigns and promotional activities significantly influence the demand for food

products. Mass media – radio, television, and written media – have not been used in

educational nutrition for a long time, despite the important influence that they can have on consumer behaviour. Publicity is a good way to make a simple message known. Moreover,

the messages distributed by mass media permit a better knowledge of the nutritional

principles, contributing to the exchange of experience among different communities and

influencing the actions of the ones in charge. Mass media can also play another important

role, if they can benefit from total freedom of information: it can contribute to triggering

pressure on public power, making it act if necessary.

Over the last years the evolution of advertisements for food products has been spectacular,

influencing the wide mass of consumers in making the purchasing decision for some food

products. But very close attention is required, as, due to their huge impact on population,

there were quite a few cases when their qualitative features were exaggerated or there were

even exaggerated or unfounded features of the products that appeared in advertisements. In order to get rid of these kinds of advertisement there is an appropriate legislation and

institutions that fight to defend the consumers’ rights and try to protect them.

Therefore, we should not neglect the fact that, at present, advertisements for food products

do not have an educational value, they being based mainly on exacerbating the psycho-

sensorial value and on selling the product. That is why only by giving population complete

and precise information can we help them choose food products correctly, and the

educational system and the health one must contribute in this respect.

The use of social marketing for a better nutritional education brought important

contributions to promoting and improving communication in nutrition by introducing some

marketing rules such as: a thorough study of the consumer; market segmenting; creativity;

multimedia strategy.

By applying the general rules in marketing it was possible to establish the main stages in drawing up the programmes for nutritional education: market segmentation with defining of

the categories of consumers and selecting the channels of communication. It is well known

that the best results are obtained when the multimedia channels are associated (radio,

television, written media, posters).

When it comes to interpersonal communication there is the advantage of privacy, of

responsible people getting involved in it, but there is also the disadvantage that the agents

have not the capacity to be open and non-conservative when they promote new ideas.



Mass-media communication brings new ideas and information to a large audience, it

communicates favourable attitudes.

Interpersonal education can have decisive effects, encouraging the total change of the

consumption behaviour and the eating habits.

Conclusions

In a market that is plentiful in products with a very diversified assortment structure, the

purchasing decision becomes difficult, being influenced by the qualitative differences

among products, by their package and promotion, by the financial possibilities and the

prices.

Nutritional education brings contributions to improvement of the social communication in

nutrition; therefore it is necessary to develop an efficient multimedia strategy, because a most important part of the population is open to the audio-visual messages, against to those

of the specialists working in health.

The requirements as regards food products are different according to categories of

consumers, complex and with a high subjective connotation, without taking into account

the objective criteria. Between the food product and the consumer there grows a system of

informational connections by means of the sense perception organs man has and that,

according to the individual’s personality leads to their behaviour.

Setting the quality value can be done by means of the correspondence between the

products’ properties, on one hand, and the psychological reflection of the available

informational consumers have, on the other. We can, thus, state that man’s sensitivity is

basic to find out the psycho-sensorial value of food products, modelled by the informative-educational system and materialised in behaviour schemes.

Man’s capacity to get satisfaction as a result of food consumption represents a condition for

a normal life and correct nutrition. In fact, we can state that, as human society evolved the

psycho-physiological sensations offered by the consumption of a product have represented

the decisive criterion to accept the food product as part of the diet. Food products that

create pleasant sensations were kept for consumption, as, by just a simple memory, their

qualities produced appetite – as a result of the conditioned reflexes. On the other hand,

those that create unpleasant sensations or produced digestive trouble were rejected,

becoming repulsive. Food products’ selection was made, therefore, taking into account

sensorial criteria that determine the consumers’ attitude towards food products. Even

nowadays they have an important weigh in choosing products, even if it is known that food

products’ assessment must be carried out by studying the nutritional value as a whole, therefore all four values.

References

Bobe, M., 2005. Produsul alimentar –abordare strategic. Bucureşti: Editura ASE.

Diaconescu, I. and Păunescu, C., 2003. Analiza senzorială în societăţile comerciale. Bucureşti: Editura Uranus.



Dima, D., Popescu, D. and Bobe, M., 2007. Essential mutations to evaluate foodstuffs. Amfiteatru Economic, IX(Special issue 1), pp.114-118.

Dima, D. et al., 2006. Mărfuri alimentare şi securitatea consumatorilor. Bucureşti: Editura

Economică.

Kotler, P. et al.,1998. Principiile marketingului. Bucureşti: Editura Teora.

Mohd Rizaimy, S. et al., 2011. Innovative Food and Its Effects toward Consumers'

Purchase Intention of Fast Food Product. Canadian Social Science, 7(1), pp.110-118.

Procopie, R. and Bobe, M., 2008. The logistics of information flow in managing the quality

of food products. Amfiteatru Economic, X(24), pp. 70-83.

Procopie, R. and Bobe, M., 2008. Social communication effectiveness in nutrition by

nutritional labelling. Calitatea – acces la succes, 9 (special issue 93), pp. 284-289.

AE Potential Connections between Migration and Immigrants’ Food Consumption Habits. The Case of Romanian Immigrants in Andalusia, Spain


POTENTIAL CONNECTIONS BETWEEN MIGRATION AND IMMIGRANTS’

FOOD CONSUMPTION HABITS. THE CASE OF ROMANIAN IMMIGRANTS

IN ANDALUSIA, SPAIN

Andreea Simona Săseanu1 and Raluca Mariana Petrescu

2

1)2) Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

The paper aims to identify potential connections between migration and food consumption

habits of Romanian immigrants in Andalusia, Spain and to study a series of factors that

may contribute to the establishment of these connections. The analysis was based on a

series of information obtained through a field research carried out between January and

June 2011 among the Romanian immigrants in Andalusia (306 respondents). The analysis’

results revealed the fact that after migration, the Romanian immigrants who took part in the

study felt a series of changes in their food consumption habits, mainly resulting in

consuming a higher proportion of the food products specific to the host country, compared

to the food products specific to their country of origin. The analysed factors that may

influence the relationship between migration and food consumption habits were encountered in the specific scientific literature, namely the length of residence and

immigrants’ age. The analysis revealed the fact that among different groups of respondents

by length of residence and age, there are statistically significant differences in what

concerns their perception regarding the changes in their food consumption habits after

migration. The length of residence is positively correlated with the changes in food

consumption after migration, while age is negatively correlated.

Keywords: migration, immigrant, consumer, consumption, food products, consumption

habits, consumer behaviour, Romania, Spain

JEL Classification: E21, F22, O15

Introduction

A person’s behaviour is the expression of the values specific to its culture, values

developed in time through the contribution of the values and culture specific to the society

it belongs to, and also of those specific to its family or different groups it belongs to. The

consumption behaviour specific to an individual can be identified as part of the culture of a

nation when it is adopted by various individuals (Luna and Gupta, 2001).

Corresponding author, Raluca Mariana Petrescu - [email protected]



Levitt (1983) cited in Rout and Senapati (2008, p. 173) argued that there are “no truly isolated cultures”. Since ancient times, humans - who are mainly consumers and play a key

role in the market (Petrescu, Dinu, Ştefănescu and Dobrescu, 2010) - searched different

economic, social, etc. opportunities in other areas than the original ones; in recent years, the

migration process has reached great amplitude, being also emphasized by the tourism

sector. Thus, when individuals belonging to one culture intersect with others belonging to

another culture, various changes at personal, social and consumption levels occur. As a

result of the increased mobility of individuals, they become exposed to “the products,

lifestyles and behaviour patterns of consumers belonging to another area” (Douglas and

Craig, 1997, p. 380). However, from another perspective, individuals that move to other

areas carry different values and types of behaviour with them, exposed to individuals

originating in the area. The increasing migration phenomenon leads to a special complexity

on the markets, at global level. The more immigrants are exposed to the host culture, the more they embrace its specific norms, values, behaviours, etc. (Luna and Gupta, 2001),

Douglas and Craig (1997) - cited by previously mentioned authors - considering that

migration represents “one of the forces that are causing radical changes in consumer

behaviour”. At the same time, immigrants not only adapt to the new culture, but they also

contribute to its change.

According to Hamlett, Bailey, Alexander and Shaw (2008, p. 92), “immigrants’

consumption behaviour represents a poorly researched phenomenon, despite the fact that

the ethnic factor is considered as a category of identity with a strong influence on

consumption decisions”. However, in what concerns acculturation and consumption,

Sutton-Brady, Davis and Jung (2010) consider that there are various studies on this topic on

groups of immigrants from different areas. Even if, according to Douglas and Craig (1997), most studies are focused on groups of immigrants in North America, especially Mexican,

Chinese or Korean, considerable efforts are being made in Europe as well, in order to

enrich studies on this subject. For example, studies concerning migration in Britain outlined

the “importance of food consumption in immigrants’ relationship with host culture” (Desai,

1963 cited in Hamlett, Bailey, Alexander and Shaw, 2008, p. 97), “food consumption being

considered a key factor in the process of consumer acculturation” (Rosenthal and Feldman,

1992; Penaloza, 1994; Omar et al., 2004 cited in Hamlett, Bailey, Alexander and Shaw,

2008, p. 97).

This paper aims to identify the potential relationships between migration and food

consumption habits of Romanian immigrants in Andalusia, Spain and to study a series of

factors that may contribute to the establishment of these relationships. In this sense, the

paper is structured into three main parts. The first part briefly puts forward a series of aspects related to the migration phenomenon in Spain - in general - and in Andalusia - in

particular -, focusing on the Romanian immigrants, while the second part briefly presents

the main results of a study (Navas Luque and Rojas Tejada, 2010) regarding the

acculturation of the Romanian immigrants in Andalusia. The third part of the paper is based

on a series of information obtained through a research carried out among the Romanian

immigrants in Andalusia during January-June 2011 and it submits an analysis regarding the

potential connections between migration and food consumption habits of immigrants,

focusing on the variables that may represent key factors in establishing the connections.

The paper ends up with a series of final considerations.



1. Aspects regarding the migration phenomenon in Spain and Andalusia - focus on

Romanian immigrants

Throughout history, and especially during the last century, migration in Spain had a

prominent role in the general evolution of population and its geographical distribution,

influencing the demographic, economic, cultural, and political behaviours in different ways.

Although migration flows have notably increased over the last century, it can be assessed

that during this period, the migration phenomenon experienced significant changes both in

its dynamics and evolution, and in terms of its features. If during the first seven-eight

decades of the 20th century, the migration phenomenon was marked by emigration outwards

and to industrialized areas of Spain, during the last decades of the century, the migration

phenomenon has seen significant changes, with an increase in the variety of directions of

migration flows, with a drastic reduction of migration outside Spain and a substantial increase of migration from outside, expressed both through the return of Spanish migrants,

as well as through the migration of foreigners into Spain (Instituto Nacional de Estadistica,

2003). The latter is currently one of the main features of Spanish demography and society.

The speed with which Spain has gone from a supplier to a receiver of immigrants doesn’t

have a precedent in the European demographical history. While in the northern European

countries, like France or England, this process occurred over several decades (between

1950 and 1970), for Spain the panorama has changed dramatically in less than five years.

Spain is the EU country that has experienced the highest continuous growth of immigrants

since 1997, receiving in 2006 about 45% of all immigrants in the European Union

(Gallardo San Salvador and Gomez de Enterria, 2009). Therefore, it can be assessed that

Spain has gone from a country of emigrants to a country that receives and integrates immigrants, recognizing the benefits of their integration both economically and socio-

culturally. In this sense, a practice can be represented by the “Strategic Plan for Citizenship

and Integration 2007-2010” (“Plan estrategico de ciudadania e integracion 2007-2010”)

which, based on principles of equality, citizenship, interculturalism, dialogue and mutual

accommodation, highlights the importance of integrating immigrants and focuses on a

comprehensive approach to citizenship and equality (Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos

Sociales, 2007).

Andalusia, the most populated autonomous community in Spain, fits the previously

described frame associated with the migration phenomenon perfectly. Thus, according to

Navas Luque and Rojas Tejada (2010), over recent years, Andalusia, an autonomous

community with a strong emigration character in most of the last century, quickly turned

into a powerful receiver of important external migration flows. For example, if in 2000 the foreign population represented 1.76% of the total population of Andalusia, in 2010 their

share rose to 8.41% (Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, 2011a). Therefore, in accordance

with the manifestation of the migration phenomenon in Spain, it can be assessed that

Andalusia went from a provider to a receiving autonomous community of immigrants, that

focuses on the integration of immigrants considered a generating factor of economic

prosperity. A practice in this sense can be represented by “The 2nd Integral Plan for

Immigration in Andalusia 2006-2009” (“II Plan Integral para la Inmigracion en Andalucia

2006-2009”) which highlights the importance of promoting social, personal and work

integration of immigrants, considered persons with rights and obligations specific to the

Andalusian society, thus ensuring the access of immigrants to mutual basic public services

(such as health care, education, social services, legal assistance, etc.) on equal terms (Junta de Andalucia, Consejeria de Gobernacion, 2007).



An integral component of international migration, emigration represents an extremely important socioeconomic phenomenon for Romania; according to Ghetau (2008), during

the communist regime (before 1990), international migration in Romania consisted of a

single component, namely emigration. The economic, social and political environments in

Romania determined and still determine more and more persons to migrate in search of

economic and social opportunities outside the national borders. In recent years, Spain and

Italy represent the most important receiving countries of temporary emigration from

Romania (OECD 2006, 2008a, 2008b; Constantin, Nicolescu and Goschin, 2008). Also,

reviewing the statistics provided by the Instituto Nacional de Estadistica (2011b), it can be

assessed that Romania, along with Morocco, is a leading provider of immigrants for Spain,

implicitly for Andalusia. Reviewing the official data from the administrative registers

(Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, 2011a) which show a stock of the Spanish

municipalities’ inhabitants, it can be observed that in 2010, 831,235 Romanians were registered as living in Spain, representing 14.46% of the total foreign population in Spain

and 1.76% of the total population of Spain. In Andalusia, according to the official data from

the administrative registers, in 2010, Romanians occupied - at very short distance - the third

position among foreigners residing in Andalusia, after the United Kingdom and Morocco;

their number was of 93,169, respectively 13.23% of the total foreign population in

Andalusia and 1.11% of the total population of Andalusia. Also, Romanians are one of the

very recent groups who have chosen Spain as a country of destination, but have

experienced a spectacular growth in recent years. A brief analysis of the evolution of

Romanians registered in Spain during 2006-2010 supports the previous statement. Thus, if

in 2006, 407,159 Romanians were registered in Spain, in 2010 their number increased more

than twice. The same situation is found also in Andalusia, where the number of registered Romanians in 2006 - of 41,053 - increased more than twice in 2010. Some of the factors

that led to these increases can be represented by the bilateral agreements between Romania

and Spain for the regulation and organization of labour movement between the two

countries, and Romania's accession to the European Union.

2. The acculturation of the Romanian immigrants in Andalusia - results of previous

studies

Jamal and Chapman (2000, p. 365) consider that in order “to explain the consumption

experiences of the consumers that come from ethnic minorities, researchers often resort to

terms such as “acculturation” and “ethnicity” ”. “Ethnicity refers to the total of ethnic

features specific to a nation, to a culture” (Academia Romana, Institutul de Lingvistica

“Iorgu Iordan”, 1998), while acculturation involves the learning and adoption of the specific norms and values of a culture by a person coming from a different culture

(Cleveland, Laroche, Pons and Kastoun, 2009). Acculturation involves changes in

behavioural patterns of immigrants, patterns that may be part of the language area, clothing

area, food area, etc. For example, acculturation involves changes in consumption patterns,

causing changes in the quantities or types of purchased goods (Wallendorf and Reilly,

1983).

According to Cleveland, Laroche, Pons and Kastoun (2009), over time, researchers have

modelled a complex process of acculturation based on both the assimilation of the new

culture (the majority, host) and the preservation and promotion of the culture of origin



(minority), the specific scientific literature outlining four patterns of acculturation (Berry,

1980 cited by the authors mentioned above):

Integration is manifested by the minority individuals (immigrants) who adopt the

new culture, and at the same time, cultivate their culture of origin.

Separation is adopted by the minority individuals (immigrants) who strongly keep

their culture of origin, and reject the norms and behaviours specific to the host culture.

Assimilation is represented by the gradual renunciation of the culture of origin in

favour of entirely adopting the host culture.

Marginalization (exclusion) occurs when the minority individuals (immigrants) lose

the cultural or psychological contact both with the society of origin and the host society.

In what concerns the process of acculturation of the Romanian immigrants in Andalusia, Navas Luque and Rojas Tejada (2010) carried out a study that aimed to apply the Expanded

Model of Relative Acculturation on the Romanian and Ecuadorian immigrants in

Andalusia. The study was based on the participation of 600 Spaniards, 277 Ecuadorian

immigrants, and 298 Romanian immigrants. In the applied model, eight environments in

which the level of acculturation was assessed, can be distinguished, respectively: the

political environment, social welfare, work, economic (which, among other issues, includes

a series of aspects related to consumption behaviour), social, family, religious, and values

environments. The acculturation strategies implemented by the immigrant groups and

perceived by the Spaniards and the attitudes and strategies preferred by the studied groups,

were analysed focusing on the four patterns of acculturation, respectively assimilation,

integration, separation and exclusion.

The study revealed that the Spaniards perceive an overall strategy of “separation” in the case of the Romanian immigrants, respectively the Spaniards believe that the Romanian

immigrants keep the habits specific to their country of origin, without embracing the ones

specific to the Spanish society. Regarding the general attitude of acculturation desired by

the Spaniards to be adopted by the Romanian immigrants, this is situated between

“assimilation” and “integration”. This means that the Spaniards would like the Romanian

immigrants to adopt the behaviours and habits specific to the Spanish society to a greater

extent, but at the same time to keep the customs and behaviours specific to their country of

origin, in a small extent. An in depth analysis of the acculturation process regarding the

eight environments mentioned above, reveals the fact that the Spaniards perceive an

acculturation strategy of “assimilation” in the work environment, of “integration” in the

social environment, and of “separation” in the family and religious environments, for the Romanian immigrants. In the rest of the environments, the perceived strategies lay between

“assimilation” and “integration” in the economic environment, and between “integration”

and “separation” in the values environment. But, in terms of acculturation attitudes desired

to be adopted by the Romanian immigrants, the Spaniards appreciate an attitude of

“assimilation” in the political, social welfare, work and economic environments, and an

attitude of “integration” in the family and values environments. In the case of the social

environment, an attitude between “assimilation” and “integration” is desired, while in the

case of the religious environment, an attitude between “integration” and “separation” is

desired (Navas Luque and Rojas Tejada, 2010).



The Romanian immigrants who took part in the study considered that they implement an overall strategy of acculturation between “separation” and “integration”, which means that

they keep the customs and behaviours specific to their country of origin, but at the same

time, they adopt the habits and behaviours specific to the Spanish society, in a small extent.

Regarding the desired general attitude of acculturation, this is one of “integration”, which

indicates that the Romanian immigrants in Andalusia would like to keep the habits and

behaviours specific to their country of origin, but also to adopt the ones specific to the host

country. An in depth analysis of the acculturation process regarding the eight environments

mentioned above, reveals the fact that the Romanian immigrants implement a strategy of

“integration” in the social and economic environments, of “separation” in the family,

religious and values environments, and one between “assimilation” and “integration” in the

work environment. In terms of desired acculturation attitudes, if they could choose, the

Romanian immigrants would implement a strategy of “integration” in the economic, social and work environments, of “separation” in more central environments such as religious and

family, of “integration-separation” in the values environment, of “assimilation-integration”

in the social welfare environment, and of “assimilation” in the political environment (Navas

Luque and Rojas Tejada, 2010).

3. Migration and food consumption habits of Romanians in Spain – potential

connections

Generally, food consumption habits are “stable and predictable but, at the same time,

paradoxically, are in a continuous change” (Fieldhouse, 1995 cited in Cleveland, Laroche,

Pons and Kastoun, 2009, p. 198), Rout and Senapati (2008) revealing that, with migration,

food consumption behaviour changes drastically. Starting with the previous statement, this part of the paper aims to analyze the potential relationships between migration and food

consumption habits of the Romanian immigrants in Andalusia, with an emphasis on the

variables that could represent key factors in establishing these relationships.

The analysis is based on a series of information obtained through a field research carried

out during January-June 2011 on Romanian immigrants in Andalusia, the autonomous

community which is among the first five communities preferred by the Romanians who

emigrate to Spain, along with Community of Madrid (Comunidad de Madrid), Valencian

Community (Comunitat Valenciana), Catalonia (Cataluna) and Castile-La Mancha

(Castilla-La Mancha). The survey was based on a questionnaire – structured into four parts

- carried out among the Romanian immigrants in Andalusia (306 respondents), the present

paper being based on a series of information obtained from the first three parts. The first

part includes general information about the respondent (age, gender, marital status, etc.), the second includes information associated with the migration process, the third includes

information associated with food consumption habits, and the fourth includes information

on the entrepreneurial intentions of respondents.

Regarding the sample’s structure according to gender, it can be assessed that it is balanced

(table no. 1). In what concerns age, a substantial presence of respondents aged between 26

and 45 is remarkable. This is not a surprising aspect because generally - related to

migration - the 26-40 age category is of particular interest to the labour market and it also

represents a category of already formed persons with high innovation and work potentials

and extremely flexible (Constantin et al., 2004 cited in Petrescu, Bac and Zgura, 2011).



Table no. 1: Sample’s structure by respondents’ gender and age

Gender Age (years)

Female Male under

16 16-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 over 65

abs. 163 143 8 56 104 82 37 16 3

% 53.3 46.7 2.6 18.3 34.0 26.8 12.1 5.2 1.0

Note: abs. – absolute value

In order to identify potential relationships between migration and food consumption habits,

in the questionnaire respondents were asked to express on a 7 levels Likert scale their

degree of agreement in connection with a statement regarding the changes in their food

consumption habits since they moved to Spain, changes shown mainly through prevalent

consumption of food products specific to the host country, compared to food products

specific to their country of origin. A descriptive analysis of the obtained results (table no. 2)

reveals that the majority of respondents (155, respectively 50.7%) totally agreed with the

fact that migration has led to some changes in their food consumption habits. This aspect

may be - to some extent - in line with the strategy of “integration” (which implies that

immigrants adopt the customs of the host society, but at the same time, they keep a part of the customs specific to their country of origin) adopted in the economic environment

(which, among other issues, includes a series of aspects related to consumption behaviour)

by the Romanian immigrants in Andalusia (Navas Luque and Rojas Tejada, 2010).

Table no. 2: Respondents’ degree of agreement related to the changes in their food

consumption habits after migration

Type of agreement The perceived degree Frequency %

Total disagreement 0 9 2.9

Moderate agreement

1 11 3.6

2 8 2.6

3 24 7.8

4 45 14.7

5 54 17.6

Total agreement 6 155 50.7

Total 306 100.0

In order to identify a series of factors that might contribute to the establishment of

relationships between migration and food consumption habits - in this case changes in food

consumption habits after migration, primarily resulted in prevalent consumption of food

products specific to the host country, compared to food products specific to their country of

origin - after reviewing the specific scientific literature, various variables were introduced

in the questionnaire.

The length of residence in the host country

Regarding the correlation between the length of residence in the host country and the

changes in food consumption habits, following a survey, Mehta and Belk (1991, p. 407)

found that “the Indian immigrants who have been living in the United States for a longer

period of time tended to adopt the American cuisine to a greater degree”. Also, Bermudez

et al. (2000) cited in Verbeke and Lopez (2005, p. 827) demonstrated that “the length of

residence in the host country influences dietary patterns, and that this is positively

correlated with the adaptation to dietary patterns specific to the host country”. The last part



of the previous statement is strengthened by the results of the study carried out by the previously cited authors (Verbeke and Lopez, 2005), which refer to the fact that the length

of residence in the host country is positively correlated with the frequency of consumption

of mainstream food specific to the host country.

Thus, after reviewing the specific scientific literature and the statistical literature

(Anghelache, 2004), the first set of hypothesis of the analysis presented in this paper was

established:

H0a: The variation of the dependent variable is independent of the factor, respectively the

means are equal – the factor is insignificant.

H1a: The variation of the dependent variable is dependent of the factor, respectively the

means are not equal – the factor is significant.

Where:

dependent variable - respondents’ perception regarding the changes in their food consumption habits after migration;

factor - length of residence in the host country.

In order to test the first set of hypotheses, the means corresponding to each category of

respondents were compared, and an ANOVA analysis was implemented. Considering the

results shown in table no. 3, it can be assessed that H0a is rejected, which means that there

are statistically significant differences between different groups of respondents taking into

consideration the length of residence, in terms of their perception on the changes in their

food consumption habits after migration. Thus, it can be assessed that the Romanian

immigrants who took part in the survey and have been living in Andalusia for a longer

period of time, perceive the changes in their food consumption habits more - primarily

resulting in prevalent consumption of food products specific to the host country, compared to food products specific to their country of origin - compared with those who have been

living for a shorter period of time.

Table no. 3: Respondents’ perception regarding the changes in their food

consumption habits after migration, depending on the length of residence

Length of residence (years) 0-1 2-3 4-5 6-7 8-9 10-11 over 11

Average score 3.17 4.15 5.05 5.31 5.43 5.37 5.56

F 13.226

Sig. 0.000(*) Note: (*) Significance level of 0.01.

Also, in order to identify the correlation between the changes in food consumption habits

after migration and the length of residence, between the two variables, the Spearman

correlation coefficient was implemented. For a significance level of 0.01, the correlation is significant (sig.=0.000), and the correlation coefficient is 0.430, leading to the idea that

there is a positive relationship between the two variables. Therefore, it can be assessed that

the length of residence is positively correlated with the changes in food consumption habits

after migration.



Immigrants’ age

Regarding the correlation between the immigrants’ age and the changes in food

consumption, following a survey, Mehta and Belk (1991, p. 407) found that, generally, the

children of the Indian immigrants who live in the United States are “enthusiastic about

American foods”. On the same note, Jamal (1998, p. 224), following a qualitative study on

food consumption habits of British-Pakistanis, considers that food products specific to the

host country are perceived by “the young generation as convenient, and as a way to

conform to the mainstream culture”. As a conclusion of the above statements, it can be

assessed that young immigrants are much more flexible and adaptable to the new culture, while older immigrants have authenticity in food consumption (Sutton-Brady, Davis and

Jung, 2010).

Thus, after reviewing the specific scientific literature and the statistical literature

(Anghelache, 2004), the second set of hypothesis of the analysis was established:

H0b: The variation of the dependent variable is independent of the factor, respectively the

means are equal – the factor is insignificant.

H1b: The variation of the dependent variable is dependent of the factor, respectively the

means are not equal – the factor is significant.

Where:

dependent variable - respondents’ perception regarding the changes in their food

consumption habits after migration;

factor - respondents’ age (immigrants’ age).

In order to test the hypotheses, the means corresponding to each category of respondents

were compared, and an ANOVA analysis was implemented. Considering the results shown

in table no. 4, it can be assessed that H0b is rejected, which means that there are statistically

significant differences between different groups of respondents taking into consideration

the age, in terms of their perception on the changes in their food consumption habits after

migration. Thus, it can be assessed that the younger Romanian immigrants who took part in

the survey perceive the changes in their food consumption habits more - primarily resulting

in prevalent consumption of food products specific to the host country than food products

specific to their country of origin - compared with older Romanian immigrants.

Table no. 4: Respondents’ perception regarding the changes in their food

consumption habits after migration, depending on their age

Age (years) under 16 16-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 over 65

Average score 4.88 4.96 5.16 4.94 4.16 3.44 3.67

F 4.669

Sig. 0.000(*)

Note: (*) Significance level of 0.01.

Also, in order to identify the correlation between the changes in food consumption habits

after migration and age, the Spearman correlation coefficient was implemented. For a

significance level of 0.01, the correlation is significant (sig.=0.002), and the correlation

coefficient is -0.178, which leads to the idea that there is a negative correlation between the

two variables.



Given the fact that according to Verbeke and Lopez (2005, p. 826), “socio-demographic characteristics, expressed in many ways, are very important determinants of the

consumption of foods”, the potential correlations or the differences between the means -

among the responses to the statement about changes in food consumption habits after

migration and a series of factors like gender, marital status, educational level, or working

status - were tested. However, in the case of the Romanian immigrants in Andalusia, the

results obtained after processing did not reveal the existence of any relationships - at least

not linear - between the variables, and neither of any statistically significant differences

between the means.

Conclusions

The results obtained from the analysis presented in this paper have revealed that migration

has influenced the food consumption habits of the Romanian immigrants in Andalusia. Respectively, after migration, the Romanian immigrants in Andalusia who took part in the

survey felt a series of changes in their food consumption habits, primarily resulting in

prevalent consumption of food products specific to the host country, compared to food

products specific to their country of origin.

Among the factors that could influence the relationship between migration and food

consumption habits, the length of residence in the host country and the immigrants’ age

were analysed in the paper. The analysis revealed that there are statistically significant

differences between different groups of respondents taking into consideration the length of

residence in the host country and the age, in terms of their perception on the changes in

their food consumption habits after migration. The length of residence is positively

correlated with the changes in food consumption habits after migration - changes primarily resulting in prevalent consumption of food products specific to the host country, compared

to food products specific to their country of origin - while age is negatively correlated.

Therefore, it can be assessed that the younger Romanian immigrants perceived stronger

changes in their food consumption habits after migration, compared with the older

immigrants. Also, the longer Romanian immigrants reside in Andalusia, the more they see

changes in their food consumption habits - compared to immigrants with a shorter

residence.

Acknowledgements

This article is a result of the project POSDRU/88/1.5./S/55287 “Doctoral Programme in

Economics at European Knowledge Standards (DOESEC)”. This project is co-funded by

the European Social Fund through The Sectorial Operational Programme for Human Resources Development 2007-2013, coordinated by The Bucharest Academy of Economic

Studies in partnership with West University of Timisoara.

References

Academia Romana, Institutul de Lingvistica “Iorgu Iordan”, 1998. Dictionarul explicativ al limbii romane. Editia a II-a. Bucuresti: Editura Univers Enciclopedic. [online]

Available at: <http://dexonline.ro> [Accessed 1 June 2011].



Anghelache, C., 2004. Statistica teoretica si economica. Bucuresti: Editura Economica.

Cleveland, M., Laroche, M., Pons, F. and Kastoun, R., 2009. Acculturation and

consumption: Textures of cultural adaptation. International Journal of Intercultural

Relations, [e-journal], 33(3), pp. 196-212. Available through: ScienceDirect database.

[Accessed 20 May 2011].

Constantin, D.L., Nicolescu, L. and Goschin, Z., 2008. Perspective europene de abordare

a azilului si migratiei. [online] Bucuresti: Institutul European din Romania. Available

at: <http://www.ier.ro/documente/spos2008_ro/Studiul_4_-_Migratie_RO.pdf>

[Accessed 9 March 2011].

Douglas, S.P. and Craig, C.S., 1997. The changing dynamic of consumer behavior:

implications for cross-cultural research. International Journal of Research in

Marketing, [e-journal], 14(4), pp. 379-395. Available through: ScienceDirect database.


Gallardo San Salvador, N. and Gomez de Enterria, J. (eds.), 2009. Estudios de Lexico

Especializado. Economia actual (1998-2008), Migraciones, Gestion del Patrimonio

Cultural, Gestion del Turismo Gastronomico. Granada: Editorial Atrio.

Ghetau, V., 2008. The known and the unknown face of Romanian international migration.

In: Vienna Institute of Demography (VID), International Conference “Effects of Migration on Population Structures in Europe”. Vienna, Austria, 1 - 2 December 2008.

[online] Available at:

<http://www.oeaw.ac.at/vid/empse/download/empse08_02_3.pdf> [Accessed 22 March

2011].

Hamlett, J., Bailey, A.R., Alexander, A. and Shaw, G., 2008. Ethnicity and Consumption South Asian food shopping patterns in Britain, 1947-75. Journal of Consumer Culture,

[e-journal], 8(1), pp. 91-116. Available through: Sage database. [Accessed 20 May

2011].

Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, 2003. Tendencias demograficas durante el siglo XX en

Espana. Madrid: Instituto Nacional de Estadistica.

Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, 2011a. Padron municipal: explotacion estadistica y

Nomenclator. Explotacion estadistica del Padron. [online] Available at:

<http://www.ine.es/jaxi/menu.do?type=pcaxis&path=%2Ft20%2Fe245&file=inebase&

L=0> [Accessed 13 February 2011].

Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, 2011b. Migraciones. Estadistica de variaciones

residenciales. [online] Available at:

<http://www.ine.es/jaxi/menu.do?type=pcaxis&path=%2Ft20%2Fp307&file=inebase&

L=> [Accessed 13 February 2011].

Jamal, A., 1998. Food consumption among ethnic minorities: the case of British-Pakistanis

in Bradford, UK. British Food Journal, [e-journal], 100(5), pp. 221 – 227. Available

through: Emerald database. [Accessed 19 May 2011].

Jamal, A. and Chapman, M., 2000. Acculturation and Inter-Ethnic Consumer Perceptions: Can You Feel What We Feel?. Journal of Marketing Management, [e-journal],16(4),

pp. 365-391. Available through: Routledge database. [Accessed 19 May 2011].

Junta de Andalucia, Consejeria de Gobernacion, 2007. II Plan Integral para la Inmigracion

en Andalucia 2006-2009. [online] Junta de Andalucia, Consejeria de Gobernacion.

Available at:



<http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/empleo/www/adjuntos/publicaciones/1_1841_II_plan_inmigracion.pdf> [Accessed 23 March 2011].

Luna, D. and Gupta, S.F., 2001. An integrative framework for cross-cultural consumer

behavior, International Marketing Review, [e-journal], 18(1), pp. 45-69. Available

through: Emerald database. [Accessed 19 May 2011].

Mehta, R. and Belk, R.W., 1991. Artifacts, identity, and transition - favorite possessions of

Indians and Indian immigrants to the United-States. Journal of Consumer Research, [e-

journal], 17(4), pp. 398-411. Available through: Business Source Premier database.


Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales, 2007. Plan estrategico de ciudadania e

integracion 2007-2010. [online] Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales. Available

at:

<http://www.mtin.es/es/sec_emi/IntegraInmigrantes/PlanEstrategico/Docs/PECIDEF18

0407.pdf> [Accessed 22 March 2011].

Navas Luque, M. and Rojas Tejada, A.J., 2010. Aplicacion del Modelo Ampliado de

Aculturacion Relativa (MAAR) a nuevos colectivos de inmigrantes en Andalucia:

rumanos y ecuatorianos. Sevilla: Junta de Andalucia. Consejeria de Empleo. Direccion

General de Coordinacion de Politicas Migratorias.

OECD, 2006. International Migration Outlook 2006. [online] Paris: OECD. Available at: <http://www.istat.it/istat/eventi/2006/ocse/ocse_migration_report_2006.pdf> [Accessed

10 February 2011].

OECD, 2008a. International Migration Outlook 2008. Country notes – Romania. [online]

Paris: OECD. Available at: <http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/57/39/41256175.pdf>

[Accessed 27 February 2011].

OECD, 2008b. International Migration Outlook 2008. Country notes – Spain. [online]

Paris: OECD. Available at: <http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/57/29/41256399.pdf>

[Accessed 27 February 2011].

Petrescu, I., Dinu, V., Ştefănescu, C. and Dobrescu, E., 2010. Human Factor’s Involvement

In The Consumer Protection Management. Amfiteatru Economic, XII(28), pp. 267-286.

Petrescu, R.M., Bac, D. and Zgura, I.D., 2011. Descriptive analysis of the international migration phenomenon in Romania between 1991 and 2008, Analele Universitatii din

Oradea, Stiinte Economice TOM XX, [online]. Available

at: <http://anale.steconomiceuoradea.ro/volume/2011/analele-universitatii-oradea-seria-

stiinte-economice-numarul-1-iulie-2011.pdf> [Accessed 5 August 2011].

Rout, N.R. and Senapati, R., 2008. Population Movement and Changing Consumer

Behavior: A Study of Balasore District in India. [online] Available at: <http://paa2008.princeton.edu/download.aspx?submissionId=80544> [Accessed 19

May 2011].

Sutton-Brady, C., Davis, T. and Jung, M., 2010. Perceived cultural spaces and cultural in-

betweens: Consumption among Korean Australians. Journal of Consumer Behaviour,

[e-journal], 9(5), pp. 349-363. Available through: Wiley database. [Accessed 20 May 2011].

Verbeke, W. and Lopez G.P., 2005. Ethnic food attitudes and behaviour among Belgians

and Hispanics living in Belgium. British Food Journal, [e-journal], 107(10-11), pp.

823-840. Available through: Emerald database. [Accessed 19 May 2011].



Wallendorf, M. and Reilly, M.D., 1983. Ethnic Migration, Assimilation, and Consumption.

Journal of Consumer Research, [e-journal], 10(3), pp. 292-302. Available through:

Business Source Premier database. [Accessed 19 May 2011].

Documents

Journal No Special 5