Ani Matei

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at National School of Political Science and Public Administration

Practice and research describe the public sector in general and public administration in particular as highly resistant to change. However, the current crisis triggered by the coronavirus and its inevitable repercussions on the economic, social and behavioral field, have triggered and continue to trigger structural and functional changes across pub...

The chapter objectives focus on mapping the sector of social economy in some states from South-Eastern Europe, presenting their role and impact due to the activities achieved in society. The theoretical part of the chapter comprises the evolution of social economy in Europe, in general, and in South-Eastern Europe, in particular, the identification...

In this article, we analyze the perspectives of professional training for public administration workers, starting from the insights gained from online courses run during the past two years in the context of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. In order to understand the nature, type, and magnitude of the changes brought by the COVID-19 pandemic in the field of...

This article analyzes the perspectives of professional training of the public administration staff, from the viewpoint of the sustainability criteria, starting from the experiences of the online courses run in the last two years. In order to understand the nature, type and magnitude of the changes caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in the field of pro...

This chapter discusses a case that presents and analyses a cause-related marketing campaign on the fight against breast cancer in Romania, campaign of AVON Beauty Company. The products of the company devoted especially to the cause-related marketing (CRM) campaign represent solidarity products with a distinct symbol, known for the cause supported,...

The open method of coordination (OMC)—a tool which was formalized in the early 2000s—has generated the interest of both the researchers and practitioners in the context of the new EU governance. This article is examining the literature of both network governance and OMC, with the focus particularly on one main question: is OMC a useful instrument i...

Local development relies on the existence of a regulatory-procedural framework, a partnership, a development strategy, and resources so that it involves taking into account the legal framework (external environment), an inventory of the resources, as well as partners/stakeholders who can be mobilized and their aspirations/expectations. All these ar...

Jobs around the world are affected by the current health crisis. European Commission, governments are concerned with finding measures to ensure the protection of employees. As such, on October 21, 2020 the European Commission issued an inaugural set of obligations with a social impact under the EU SURE Instrument of the European Union. Amounting to...

Romanian Journal of Public Affairs (RJPA) is aiming to promote interdisciplinary research in governance, public administration, public affairs, public policy, law, economics and finance, following the philosophy of international interdisciplinary journals. RJPA is an open-acces journal and under the Creative Commons options. The general topic cove...

Subsidiarity constitutes a guiding principle of the EU exercising power and the idea of involving national parliaments in the EU legislative procedure was seen as the best solution to increase democracy and transparency of the EU decision-making process at the European Convention established in 2001. Such a mechanism enables national parliaments to...

Romanian Journal of Public Affairs (RJPA) is aiming to promote interdisciplinary research in governance, public administration, public affairs, public policy, law, economics and finance, following the philosophy of international interdisciplinary journals. RJPA is an open-acces journal and under the Creative Commons options. The general topic cov...

In the aftermath of the 2019 European elections, the article tries to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the European Parliament within the framework of the ordinary legislative procedure (co-decision). After defining and formulating the main indicators, the paper analyses the micro- and macro-performance of the European Parliament within t...

Romanian education system faces structural failures due to increased labour market instability and the proliferation of austere economic policies in adjusting the value of GDP. Open competition on the labour market, both in the EU and countries outside the European Union also stresses the need to adapt the education system to meet current and futur...

Integration of public and nonprofit marketing issues into the current public administration research agenda is the result of the continued expansion in the last decades of spheres and content of the mentioned domains.

The intrinsic link between public procurement and social innovation is moreover present both in the field literature and policies, documents of the European Union or other international organizations or institutions.

The chapter presents the social marketing campaign “Ask the fiscal receipt!” as a case study for revealing the relevant contribution of consumers as actors of the fiscal policies.

Social marketing influences in a relevant manner the process of producing and disseminating social knowledge, thus asserting attitudes and approaches according to various objectives of social evolution.

The chapter objectives focus on mapping the sector of social economy in some states from South-Eastern Europe, presenting their role and impact due to the activities achieved in society. The theoretical part of the chapter comprises the evolution of social economy in Europe, in general, and in South-Eastern Europe, in particular, the identification...

The genuine and actual conditions of operation of public institutions in Romania should determine the creation of behaviors oriented on development of organizational learning culture. The objectives of the chapter are focused on identifying the use of knowledge management concept in local public institutions in Romania, as well as its importance an...

For the time being, public sector innovation gains new and complex forms of expression: managerial, institutional, technological or communication. This fact is also due to national and international important bodies’ interest for using innovation as resource and tool for public sector development. Characterised by complexity and adaptation, the inn...

On the eve of the Brexit process, in the context of a rising Euroscepticism that fuels the modest confidence of European citizens in their national and European institutions, the article assesses the efficiency and effectiveness of the European Parliament within the framework of the ordinary legislative procedure (co-decision). After defining and f...

ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT AND THE NEW CHALLENGES OF HIGHER EDUCATION A. Matei, M.C. Gogu The National School of Political Science and Public Administration (ROMANIA) The European Union has the competence to support, coordinate or supplement actions of the member states in the field of higher education, and via some programmes, like Erasmus and Horizon 2...

The adaptive public administration occurs frequently in theoretical and empirical analyses. The concept itself represents the finality of multiple approaches, assessing and operationalizing the impact of the changes induced by internal and external environment on the current status of a public or private organization. The current paper aims the fir...

The innovative pedagogy is enhanced by learning and teaching or training programmes focused on social innovation and social entrepreneurship. In this context, the academic capacity building represents a fundamental element. This paper aims to present a framework of developmental traditions that have a great influence on collective learning in order...

The education system in Romania will have to take into account the need to give people the skills and abilities needed to adapt quickly to changing labor markets. In the current context the study is based on comparative statistical analyses and correlations in the field of human resources in the higher educational system, analyses based on secondar...

Since the availability of financial resources is reduced, concern for increasing organizational efficiency and effectiveness becomes more conspicuous in any field, including in the public administration. Naturally this raises the question: how can this be accomplished?, calling for a solution that is easy to apply and requiring reduced costs, solut...

The field literature reveals multiple approaches of local public service performance. Directly managed by public administrative institutions or by private agents through concession or public-private partnership, the public services should respond to important requirements concerning the higher level of citizens’ satisfaction. In this context, the p...

Innovation involves taking a risk and accepting a potential of failure. Thus, reporting to our public administrative system, the process of innovation is not normally associated with thinking and acting within the public sector. This is a real challenge, and if this challenge is overcome, innovation has the proper internal channels to take effect....

The evolution from public services to networks of social enterprises, not integrated into administrative convergence, expresses the essence of a process of institutional restructuring and reconversion based on common directions above mentioned and determined by the impact of Collaborative Public Management on Collaborative Governance. The above evo...

Contemporary society is evolving rapidly, fact which producing major changes within it. These changes are caused by the challenges of the public administration (Europeanization and Globalization) and result in the emergence of the new social problems (cultural, social, economic and environmental) that public authorities have to face and resolve the...

The paper sets to research the aspects relating to the structure of the public service, which Romania has chosen to implement in the period following the adherence to the European Union, with the purpose of creating a modern administration, adjusted to the challenges of the 21st century. The study will point out the way in which the reformation met...

Public entities’ Corporate Governance is a concept that is gaining more and more field both in specialized literature and in practice. The public bodies’ Corporate Governance as leadership and control method involves a set of clear rules and principles (integrity, honesty / sincerity, transparency and responsibility), clear risk management and cont...

This paper adresses the social economy and its importance for the local development and social cohesion. Note should be taken that the social economy arises at confluence between the business field and the social field, insofar the social economy's primary aim is not the profit making but the stakeholders’ welfare and socio-economic inclusion. This...

The economic crisis has developed new challenges for public institutions in the EU member states. These institutions experience a notable economic pressure on their decisional process. The EU has been boosting the member states to reduce the ‘administrative burden’ of public institutions by promoting measures of institutional and legislative adapta...

The financial and economic crisis strongly struck the European Union at a time when it was experiencing a period of prolonged growth. It was maybe the most affected entity in the world, due to the fact that a debt crisis followed right after the financial one. In this context, the decision makers had to tackle the issues in a very fast and differen...

The objective of this article is to describe a way for public services leaders to create and lead a wanted change. Complexity and uncertainty or public organization has a high impact when managers are willing to conduct change. We try to see if we can change the way attractors behave, and how can them create chaotic change by influencing the patter...

In 2003 a joint program, “Young Professional Scheme”(YPS), developed by the Romanian Government and the European Commission was initiated in order to create a corps of professional civil servants, called public managers. As initially presented the scheme supposed to have been inspired and decisively influenced by the UK's Fast Stream Scheme. The id...

this research focuses on two innovative practices in the public sector. The first is eprocurement, which refers to the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to carry out a number of stages of the procurement process, including search, sourcing, negotiation, ordering, receipt, and post-purchase review. This technology is relevant...

The term of “innovation” has become increasingly frequent as people begin to recognize both the need for fundamental change in human beings’ relationships with each other and their environment. This paper wants to bring up also the complexity theory matter in order for us to be able to build a connection between innovation and complex adaptive soci...

The activities of the social enterprises are located in a dynamic context of the decision makers’ concerns on European, regional, national and local level with regard to economic growth, which favors the creation of a social market economy with a high degree of competitiveness. Should we refer to the evolution of social business in Europe, it is es...

Since the beginning of its existence in the form of communities, this entity faced a lot of challenges that could had been stopped the European dream without the fast, prompt and appropriate reaction of the decision makers. There were a lot of difficult times in its history of more than 60 years but the ambition and need of going forward on the way...

In some countries, we can identify different contributions of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to the development process. In a part of these countries, NGOs are weak in matter of project implementation or play more of an oppositional rather than operational role and governments are highly suspicious of them. A number of factors influence...

Global transformations throughout the past decades impose that the public sector should act more efficiently in service of the citizen; therefore, public management has borrowed a series of organizational and functional principles from the private sector management. These public management reforms aim at depoliticization, debureaucratisation and im...

The performance management is the framework of a good implementation of the strategy in an organization. It shows how plans transform in results and it underlines the importance of the integration of processes, methodologies and activities which used isolated will not give the same results. The aim in this paper is to analyze one of the mechanisms...

Nowadays, the curricular development is situated in the area of significant changes of higher education, bearing the mark of society demand and profession development on labour market. In this context, actions such as: change of higher education structure, development of quality assurance systems and mechanisms enabling the dimension of curricular...

At first glance, defining good administration seems easy to be done, but it is not always like that. As a quite new concept, promoted by the supporters of the new public management, good administration is a fundamental right of the European Union and, at the same time, a principle established by the European Court of Justice or a concept used in th...

The purpose of this research is to analyze the evolution of corporate governance instruments in the Romanian public sector as a form of expression of New Public Management. The paper is divided into three chapters that are analyzed the theoretical aspects of corporate governance as a model of coordination, comparative aspects of corporate governanc...

It is currently contended that the economic adjustment programmes being implemented by Romania should be accompanied by reforms that lead to concrete modernization. The current economic difficulties demonstrate the limits of the state in terms of leading and guaranteeing constant social and economic development by itself, and have attracted new int...

The performance of local public administration it is an extremely actual topic and its research has a strategically importance. The objective in this paper is to see how Romanian local authorities understand the sense of performance and its aspects. It is very important for local collectivities to have a good local public administration and a conti...

The master programmes in the field of public administration reveal two trends, and in spite of being contradictory they ensur e both the convergence and specificity imposed by the continental/national realities:

The digital ecosystem represents a relatively new concept in the scientific world, being the support of ecosystems in a powerful analogy with the social network or business network. Deriving from the systemic theories of complexity, the digital ecosystems may model the public affairs. The public market represents a subsystem characterised by specif...

This paper wants to bring up the circumstances and the results that are achieved when observing the new public management through complexity pattern. The complexity theory and the new public management share a point of view for the monitoring and the feedback when steering the behavior in organizational systems. The concepts are not well implemente...

The last three decades have witnessed a proliferation of studies on the globalization of corruption or convergence of anticorruption strategies. These studies have been motivated by scholarly concerns from various administrative, economic, and political fields. In view of these interdisciplinary concerns, the purpose of this article is to provide a...

The logic of cooperation substantiates the strategic powers of the public agents and their coalitions, thus bringing contribution to understanding the political mechanisms which determine the public decision. The public bodies, derived from a process of political choice turn into account the logic of cooperation in view to establish own managerial...

The European integration process continuously introduces new tasks to Member States’ and acceding countries’ governments. Ensuring public policies coordination, in particularly, intra-governmental coordination at national level represents one. Intra-governmental coordination in Romania is an atypical case; public institutions are concerned constant...

Over the last decades the Education transformation through Technology is becoming a more extensive tool for enhancing the Bologna process on increasing the quality, effectiveness and accessibility of the higher education. In this context, the literature supports the importance of Web platforms for education in particular through comparative analysi...

The global economy is facing a complex and outstanding challenge: the economic and financial crisis. The digital revolution represents the pillar for a competitive and sustainable global economy and Information and Communication Technologies can become a crucial factor for the economic recovery. The paper aims to highlight the significant contribut...

The current volume turns into account the most representative papers accepted and presented at the Permanent Study Group «Public and Nonprofit Marketing» of the 33rd Annual Conference of the European Group for Public Administration (EGPA), which was held in Bucharest during 7-10 September 2011 and was organized by the National School of Political S...

If improved public administration can be characterized as “doing things right” then the policy making process might be described as determining the appropriate things to do, so that government is “doing the right things”.In Romania as in other transition economies, public action through government has been restructured to meet the needs of modern “...

The major macroeconomic changes occurred in the last years at global level represent real challenges for contemporary governments which had to rethink their public policies for getting a real impact on citizens’ behaviour.In this paper, we explore the instruments promoted by social marketing, especially the community-based social marketing, and the...

The master programmes in the field of public administration reveal two trends, and in spite of being contradictory they ensure both the convergence and specificity imposed by the continental/ national realities: A thematic focus on public management (MPM), public policies (MPP) or public affairs (MPA); A diversification of the content and didactic...

The activities of the social enterprises are located in a dynamic context of the decision makers’ concerns on European, regional, national and local level with regard to economic growth, which favors the creation of a social market economy with a high degree of competitiveness. Should we refer to the evolution of social business in Europe, it is es...

The public procurement of goods, services and works consume annually up to 18% of the EU Member States’ GDP. The ongoing diversity of public procurement as well as the more focused compatibility of the procedures on public procurement are shaping and substantiating the public procurement market as component of the European Single Market. Recently t...

In the context of the European administration development, the Balkan states are shaping a distinct area, determined both by specific traditions and administrative culture, status of the European integration and influences of New Public Management, “weberian” administration etc. The current study reveals the outcomes of a socio-statistic survey con...

The paper examines the evolution of the social enterprise and the social entrepreneurship in Romania, as solutions of local development, as instruments of cooperation among citizens, organizations and the bodies of local, regional, national and European representation. The study takes into consideration the theoretical and normative framework in vi...

The construction and development of the European administration represent also nowadays controversial topics, determining new paradigms which are situated at the interface between traditional and modern in the approach of the theory and science of administration. The current publication represents in its first part a relevant synthesis concerning t...

Nowadays, public policies represent the most adequate instrument of action in view to achieve the public interest, no matter we talk about European, national or local level. The rational approach of public policies, representing the topic of the current publication, is or should be a steady feature of public policy making and implementing. We find...

The current volume represents the outcome of the international conference “National and European Values of Public Administration in the Balkans,” organised in Bucharest on 15-16 July 2011. The conference has been organised by Jean Monnet research network dedicated to “South-Eastern European developments on the administrative convergence and enlarge...

In Europe, e-government is considered as one of the main goals for the future. Lately, we have witnessed the revolution in the provision of e-government services for citizens. Citizens benefit of e-government services, better access to information, improved interaction with government, especially due to the increase of using ICT. The paper analyses...

The public sector has been engaged for several years in a process of modernization, in order to meet the demands of the “citizen-consumer.” The European Union is undergoing the same process, especially regarding the management of European funds. The financial and economic crisis, characterized by the scarcity of financial resources raised the probl...

The Europe two speeds is a reality that makes its presence felt, especially in the newly acceded countries. Although four years have passed since the last wave of accessions, we still speak about new EU countries, without taking into account the actual age but present discrepancies between member countries member for decades, and new wave countries...

This paper is intended as an introduction to the concept of "open source government." It presents the late as it draws from the open source software development. Starting from the identification of the open source (OS) model in a new generation of R&D management, the main objective is to examine the feasibility of introducing innovations based on t...

The authors propose an analysis of the public administration reform in Romania by assessing whether the Romanian civil servants perform their duties according to the regulations of the European Administrative Space. The paper offers a socio-statistic perspective on the internalization of the European Administrative Space principles, namely, the rul...

The European Union has grown both terms of size, scope, impact on Member States and in European Union competencies, in particular since the 1990s with the exponential growth in number of members - from 12 to 15 to 25 now 27 and how many more? - with the completion of the Single Market and the Single Currency. The goal of this paper is to present an...

The aim of the article is to explore the characteristics of the emerging administration of the states from the South-east Europe under the changes and reforms imposed by the European Union pressure and also to present what means these characteristics. EU throw his policies and strategies has a great impact on economic and social conditions in the E...

Since the conceptual framework of the European Administrative Space (EAS) in 1990s, at least two convergent trends may be found out. The first trend refers to EAS operationalisation as instrument and mechanism for assessing the reforms of the national public administrations. Herewith, we refer to the deepness of EAS content, which has become more c...

The paper is based on a fundamental hypothesis frequently identified in the specialised literature concerning the strong correlation between public integrity, professionalism of civil servants and the quality of bureaucracy. In this context the main objective of this paper is to highlight, through quantitative and qualitative analysis, significant...

The main focus of the paper is to determine and analyze how the social policies in Romania are consistent with the trends from the Social European Space. Understanding the European Social Space as one of the main pillars of the paper integrates, the evolution and development of the Romanian social policies, in particular the health policies by quan...

At the beginning of the 21st century, the European Union (EU) governance and administration are undergoing in a rapid pace the pathway, not without obstacles from concept to reality, revealing characteristics that aim both the European and national elements in a permanent interpenetration, whose complexity is superior to the other processes and phe...

The public authorities are facing real challenges due to the complexity and dynamics of economic and social issues. They must daily assess the available resources and answer to questions such as "is the citizens' welfare good enough, can it be improved?" "there are the initiatives for the environmental protection adequate?" "is there a coherent emp...

Living in a rapidly changing society, where information travels with great speed and its upgrade is essential, we decided to approach certain aspects of e-democracy, as a dynamic way of citizen participation, using new Information and Communications Technologies.The theme chosen for this research, Electronic governance, premise for implementation o...

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and describe the relation between knowledge and development in the new knowledge-based economy and to deduct the socio-economic basics of the public marketing strategies in this context. The particularity of this approach is due to the features of knowledge, seen as production factor, mixed public good or glo...

The concepts and approaches of public marketing are moreover used and quantified in the national and European public systems. Adapted, with behaviours specific to the public system, the fundamental concepts of marketing represent a component of "the new culture of public service". The paper aims to present aspects concerning the use of the fundamen...

The fundamental idea of the current publication emphasizes the characteristics of the processes related to administrative convergence and reform in the South-Eastern states. Of course the area under review is quite wide and complex and therefore our approach aims to comprise only a few characteristics.Encompassing various geo-political aspects, pol...