Social Sciences and Communication

This study explores relations among nationalism, ethnic identity, perceived threat and attitudes towards the Roma among 178 Bulgarian and 211 Romanian adolescents (age: M = 16.96, SD = .75). Results indicated that Bulgarian youth revealed stronger nationalism, ethnic identity, perceived threat and negative attitudes toward Roma than their Romanian peers. A path model showed that perceived threat was a positive predictor of Romaphobia for both groups. Furthermore, we observed that Romaphobia was strongly related to adolescents’ nationalism and this relationship was mediated by perceived economic, symbolic and physical threat. Findings are discussed in terms of difference in salience and similarity of relations between nationalism and romaphobic attitudes for youth in two neighbor countries with a similar post-communist history.

Abstract. The present study examined the psychometric properties of the Dutch and Italian versions of the Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale (U-MICS) in large community samples of adolescents from Italy (N = 1,975) and The Netherlands (N = 1,521). Confirmatory ...

We investigated reward-allocation judgments when positive outcomes (monetary rewards) were distributed and the allocator was not a co-recipient, in a sample of 200 Romanian students. Within a full factorial survey design, seven factors, selected to affect the allocation decision, were orthogonally varied. The factors reflect individual characteristics of the recipients (gender, age, contribution, need, work experience) and situational characteristics (future work interaction and task routineness). Romanian students preferred to allocate rewards applying an equitybased distribution model. Work experience and task routineness were also significant, yet less important. The recipient gender has no effect on allocation judgments. In terms of between-respondents variability, we found that students' gender, work experience, and age do not have an impact on reward-allocation judgments. We discuss implications of our findings for organizations and practitioners.

This study compares youth in Bulgaria and Romania by examining differences in ethnic and personal identity and their relation to well-being. Participants were 178 Bulgarian and 211 Romanian youth (15-19 years) who provided data on their ethnic identity, personal identity and life satisfaction. Results showed that Bulgarians reported higher personal identity commitment and exploration, whereas no group differences were found for ethnic identity and reconsideration of commitment. A good fit was found for a path model in which strong ethnic identity and achieved personal identity (high commitment and exploration but low reconsideration of commitment) lead to enchased well-being in both groups.

This study compared high school youth from two major cities in Bulgaria and Romania, by examining differences in nationalism and national identity and their joint influence on well-being. We tested the hypothesis that nationalism activates a sense of national identity, which in turn increases well-being. Participants for this study-178 adolescents of Bulgarian ethnic background and 211 adolescents of Romanian ethnicity-were sampled from two public high schools in Sofia (Bulgaria) and two public high schools in Brasov (Romania). They provided data on their nationalistic attitudes and national identity, life satisfaction, positive and negative affect and anxiety. Results showed that Bulgarians reported higher nationalism (most notably national feelings and national superiority) and national identity than Romanian youth. We found a good fit for a path model in which strong feelings of nationalism lead to strong national identity in both groups. However, under the chosen model specification nationalism and identity were related to enhanced well-being of Romanian youth only, a relationship that needs further examination. We discuss our results and their implications in the concluding section of the paper.

Prior research in Western contexts has pointed to the benefits of supporting employees in the use of their personal strengths at work. This manuscript aims to investigate the invariance of the relationship between employees' perceived organizational support for the use of their strengths and their well-being (work engagement, burnout, and satisfaction with life) across countries. To this end, we collected a cross-sectional sample of n = 1894 working individuals from five different countries (Germany, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Romania, and South Africa). The results of multigroup path analysis indicated that the relationships between support for the use of their strengths at work and the three indicators of well-being did not differ across the five countries. Perceived support for the use of strengths displayed a significant positive relationship with work engagement and satisfaction with life and a significant negative relationship with burnout. Consequently, our findings provide initial evidence for the universal benefits of focusing on individual strengths at work.

Following Snir and Harpaz's (2012) model of Heavy Work Investment (HWI), we propose a model that clarifies the relationship of antecedents of HWI to burnout. The model consists of several components: (a) external/situational antecedents, 'income' and 'workload' and internal/dispositional antecedents, 'job engagement' and 'workaholism'; (b) a mediator variable, HWI (divided into 'time' and 'effort'); and (c) 'burnout' as the outcome variable. Data was obtained by social science students who surveyed 388 Romanian employees, ages 19 to 66, on two consecutive occasions with a six-week interval (times T1 and T2). Using structural equation modelling, the mediation has an excellent fit at both T1 and T2. The mediation role of HWI is confirmed for T2, with respect to three factorsjob engagement, workaholism and workloadbut not for T1. The findings are discussed, as are their contribution to the theoretical literature and new directions for further research and organizational practice.

This article continues the work done for the 2016 University Metaranking and updates its results for the 2017 edition, with the new data available for 2017. The 2017 University Metaranking relies on the results of the performance of Romanian universities in international league tables / rankings in the field of higher education. The results are discussed from a qualitative and quantitative point of view; furthermore, a sensitivity analysis is also applied to them. Moreover, alongside the global results, the article discusses results on domains and subjects. Starting from the resulting metaranking, the article proposes a possible classification of Romanian universities into four classes and also suggests possible future public policies concerning especially (research) funding of performant universities at national level. Potential international and national developments are also discussed, with a view of supporting Romanian universities to improve their performance at international level.

The article presents the results of a qualitative research project carried out in 2008, which aimed at identifying the identity condition of managers in Romania. The article presents part of the grounded theory on the identity of managers: the day to day circumstances in which they live -issues related to childhood and maturity (material situation, relationships, family, etc.). Also, it describes in brief the methodology applied: qualitative collection of data, theoretical sampling, theoretical saturation and the analysis of qualitative data obtained.

How I Performed 'Story-Telling'. A Confessional Story. The article deals with the subject of story-telling as a way to interpret qualitative data. It describes the manner in which this is accomplished (passing through the stages of data collecting and analysis) as well as the difficulties the researcher meets when trying to perform a story-telling. The article is actually the confessional account of the development of a story-telling. It is a story made of other accounts (with different manners of writing: realist, descriptive and interpretative) about 'what and how' the respondents would have liked to be (sociologists which have become teachers and engineers which have become businessmen).

The present article presents the personal experience of the author with research methodologies. Some limits of the social scientific research are being analyzed, regarding two of the stages of research: theoretical framework and operationalization; this is the way in which the validity of the criteria and the construct validity came into discussion. At the same time, the character of sociological theories and their utility in scientific research are under discussion. Reasons for which qualitative is chosen are listed despite the constant disapproval of this method in Romanian sociology (and it's marginalization in Central -East Europe). The advantages of qualitative research in socio-human sciences are presented (what is being researched, through what methods,

The paper is the result of analysis of data obtained studied from a qualitative perspective; the characteristics of their living space and of the discourse used to describe it were considered as identity markers. Sociologists differed irony and intellect. The author approached the study of sociologists' identity through a qualitative method drawing attention over the unexploited category of the subjects and the method that is not very often used.

The article presents the technique of unstructured interviewing as a means of exploration in sociological investigations (the way in which this technique facilitates identifying sociological assistance objectives and research objectives and hypotheses; the way in which the exploration helps "translating" the "sickness" symptoms expressed by the beneficiary in a common language, into sociological concepts of specific theories). For illustration a case study is presented (a sociological investigation at a company located in Brasov). The article describes in detail the collection of data, the qualitative data analysis (through the reproduction of matrices and networks -as means of visual presentation of the data) and the data interpretation.

The article presents the process of grounding a theory about Romanian managers' identity. It shows the manner in which the stages of data collection, data analysis and sampling have been conceived and implemented. It also describes in detail the decisions taken in each of these stages (the choice of methods and techniques, their combining and so on), the procedures followed and the difficulties encountered. The research was done in 2008 having as subjects 20 Romanian managers; it aimed at identifying identity aspects which are typical to managers. The article is based on the idea that describing the way in which the findings were reached is as important as expressing the conclusions themselves. It shows that qualitative research is suitable in understanding managerial aspects.

The paper submits the results of a visual research on the perception of inequality within Romanian society. The data were collected by means of drawings, an uncommon method used in studying social stratification. The analysis was applied to 82 drawings obtained from 41 Romanians (and 16 drawings obtained from 8 Italians added to the former, in an attempt to explore differences cross-nationally). The results refer to the
resources that are perceived to be unequally distributed in Romania, to the acceptable sources of inequality in Romania and, in exploratory terms, to the comparative analysis upon the perception of inequality in Romania and Italy. The  commonest inequality perceived in Romania is the economic inequality. Here, one of the acceptable sources of inequality is related to the prestige of professions, and one of the unacceptable sources of inequality is the qualitative dimension of lifestyle: dissatisfaction, discontent, unhappiness.