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Cristian Dogar - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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a what if analysis for sound financial management decisions in romanian European Social Fund grants evaluation
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2014Co-Authors: Cristian Dogar, Codruşa MareAbstract:Abstract European Commission trusted for implementation the European Social Fund (ESF) to Member States through a commonly agreed decentralized management system, including compliance to the “sound financial management” principle within the Members’ State designated Authorities obligations. While implementing ESF, Romania should comply too with this principle all projects cycle life: national ESF programming, launching calls for grant proposals, evaluating applications and contracting, monitoring and disbursing sums. Even if performance's basis is put in the programming phase, grant assessment phase stays as the most important in fixing each grant's future performance and the program's performance framework as well. Our study tends to enhance the importance of assessment process for sound financial management implementation in a “what if” analysis based on potential financial corrections applied due to a potential deviation of proposed costs from fixed standard cost. Conclusions lead us to a number of scenarios that may be practically used for assisting management's decision and reporting towards a sound ESF implementation in Romania.
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quantitative methods for sound financial management decisions in romanian European Social Fund implementation
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2014Co-Authors: Cristian Dogar, Codruţa MareAbstract:Abstract European Social Fund has to be accurately implemented by Members’ States authorities through projects developed by public and private national entities, according also to the principle of “sound financial management”, described as the expression of the appropriate mix of economy of assigned resources, efficient allocation of resources toward indicators and effectiveness of financed operations. As long as ESF Funding is trusted for implementation through a decentralized management mechanism to the Members’ State Authorities, those have to comply with reporting objectives to the EC, as set into the European Regulations, including compliance to the “sound financial management” principle whose three components are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely (SMART). Identifying the most appropriate quantitative methods that could be applied to the measurable elements may be seen as a first step in assisting both: management's decision towards implementation and reporting over the EC objectives. Our study tends to appropriate some quantitative models to the ESF implementation mechanisms, enhancing connections among ESF specific variables: project's budgets and number of individuals receiving labor market related services (also called project's indicators). Conclusions lead us to a series of quantitative models that may be practically used for assisting management's decision and reporting towards a sound ESF implementation in Romania.
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A “What if” Analysis for Sound Financial Management Decisions in Romanian European Social Fund Grants Evaluation☆
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2014Co-Authors: Cristian Dogar, Codruşa MareAbstract:Abstract European Commission trusted for implementation the European Social Fund (ESF) to Member States through a commonly agreed decentralized management system, including compliance to the “sound financial management” principle within the Members’ State designated Authorities obligations. While implementing ESF, Romania should comply too with this principle all projects cycle life: national ESF programming, launching calls for grant proposals, evaluating applications and contracting, monitoring and disbursing sums. Even if performance's basis is put in the programming phase, grant assessment phase stays as the most important in fixing each grant's future performance and the program's performance framework as well. Our study tends to enhance the importance of assessment process for sound financial management implementation in a “what if” analysis based on potential financial corrections applied due to a potential deviation of proposed costs from fixed standard cost. Conclusions lead us to a number of scenarios that may be practically used for assisting management's decision and reporting towards a sound ESF implementation in Romania.
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Conflicts of Interests in the Accounting Reporting Area of European Social Fund Financed Operations in Romania
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2014Co-Authors: Tatiana Danescu, Cristian DogarAbstract:AbstractFor Romania, the specificity of the European Social Fund implementation within the framework of shared management stands into managing: accounting and technical information of thousands of grant contracts financing approved labor market related activities to achieve specific indicators. Designated Romanian authorities should act insofar as privileged accounting information users, assuming their duties of responsible donor's representative, managing the sound financial implementation of grant contracts by asking for detailed financial and non financial information, determining, aggregating and correcting indicators or activities costs at program's level, ensuring so the implementation compliance to sound financial management and transparency principles. Paper's purpose is to contribute at Fund's sound financial management implementation by providing an analysis of needed information in the accounting reporting area and a guideline for performance dashboard. Analysis conclusions lead us to a proposed minimum of data needed to asses, improve and report performance at responsibility center level and to evaluate, improve and treat deviations at program's level as well, including relevant data flows within the approved shared management implementation system
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COSO Principles and European Social Fund Funded Projects in Romania
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012Co-Authors: Tatiana Danescu, Cristian DogarAbstract:Abstract European Social Fund (ESF), being one of the oldest Structural Instruments of the European Union (EU) has to be implemented through projects, by public and private entities allover EU, according to the principle of “sound financial management”. But, are the Romanian ESF financed projects ready to comply to the “sound financial management” principle? The answer at this question may be delivered by a descriptive research on COSO's principles in ESF implementation context, followed by an explorative research on beneficiaries’ perception about how COSO's principles are implemented in their projects. The conclusions lead to a number of easy-recognizable and applied principles but also to some less applied principles, generating risks in ESF projects and in ESF implementation as a whole.
Katharina Zimmermann - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Local Policies and the European Social Fund - A broader perspective on local policies and the European Social Fund
Local Policies and the European Social Fund, 2019Co-Authors: Katharina ZimmermannAbstract:Chapter 8 departs from the empirical findings presented in chapter 6 and 7 and develops an empirically-grounded typology of local responses to the European Social Fund in the field of Social and employment policies. The three major empirical patterns of how local policy fields deal with the ESF and under which conditions they do so, are discussed in turn. The first type refers to the so-called ‘refuseniks’; cases where local Social and employment actors experienced the ESF more as a burden than as a welcome financial gift. In the second type, it was observable that actors with clear and pre-defined own ideas used the ESF-Funding to finance these ideas. Such ‘cream skimmer’ cases did not experience significant change of their local policy fields through the ESF. In the third type (the ‘transformers’), this was clearly different: here, local Social and employment policies were strongly shaped by the ESF. Chapter 8 discusses to what extent these types can be (contingently) generalised to other cases in Europe and beyond, and what the implications of the findings are for theoretical debates in the field of Europeanisation.
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Local Policies and the European Social Fund
2019Co-Authors: Katharina ZimmermannAbstract:In the context of an ‘activation turn’ in many European welfare states, the local level gained increasing relevance in the last decades and brought local Social policies and national employment policies more closely together. At the same time, at the European level the European Social Fund (ESF) made a career from an unconditional simple financing instrument towards a complex governance tool; meant to back up European Social and employment policies in close combination with tools such as reporting or benchmarking. Greater coordination of domestic policies in Social and employment policies, where the EU had no regulative competences, was sought to be achieved via ‘bypass strategies’ which directly focused on the subnational implementation systems of the member states. Against the backdrop of these scenarios, the book is interested in the actual role of the ESF in local activation policies. It wants to know how local Social and employment policy fields react to the ESF, what shapes their reactions, and what the effects of these reactions are in terms of change in local policy fields. By drawing on both sociologists’ and political scientists’ literature, the book develops a unique perspective on the role of supranational money at the local level. By comparing comprehensive qualitative data from 18 local case studies in six European countries (Sweden, France, Poland, UK, Italy, and Germany) and deploying an innovative mixed-method approach, the book provides rich insights into a field where so far comparative qualitative research is missing.
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Local Policies and the European Social Fund - Comparative insights into local responses to the European Social Fund
Local Policies and the European Social Fund, 2019Co-Authors: Katharina ZimmermannAbstract:Chapter 5 presents insights how local responses to the ESF look like, both in a qualitative and descriptive manner, and in a more formalised, quantified way. In a first step, the chapter presents descriptive snapshots how usages of Europe look like in the empirical reality and then illustrates the situation across the 18 local cases. The same is done for ESF-induced change. In a final step, the chapter draws a comparative picture of local patterns of usage and change. Here, three different configurations of usage and change stand out empirically: cases where no usage and no change was observed, cases with usage but no change, and cases with both usage and change.
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local responses to the European Social Fund a cross city comparison of usage and change
Journal of Common Market Studies, 2016Co-Authors: Katharina ZimmermannAbstract:Governance in the European Union has become increasingly complex and multi-facetted in the last decades. The article argues that the ESF (European Social Fund) is a crucial example in this regard since it combines financial incentives, procedural requirements and programmatic conditions. In order to analyse local responses to this complex governance tool, the article deploys analytical tools from the Europeanization literature and builds on in-depth case knowledge from 18 cities in six European countries. A QCA (Qualitative Comparative Analysis) combined with case discussions reveals three different types of responses to the ESF. In ‘transformer-cases’, both usage of the ESF and change brought by it can be observed. In ‘cream-skimmer-cases’, only usage but no change was measured, and in ‘refusenik-cases’, neither usage nor change was detected. While usage of the ESF can be explained by individual motivation of local actors or the incentivizing dimension of the Funds, change is apparently more complex.
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Local Responses to the European Social Fund: A Cross‐City Comparison of Usage and Change
JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 2016Co-Authors: Katharina ZimmermannAbstract:Governance in the European Union has become increasingly complex and multi-facetted in the last decades. The article argues that the ESF (European Social Fund) is a crucial example in this regard since it combines financial incentives, procedural requirements and programmatic conditions. In order to analyse local responses to this complex governance tool, the article deploys analytical tools from the Europeanization literature and builds on in-depth case knowledge from 18 cities in six European countries. A QCA (Qualitative Comparative Analysis) combined with case discussions reveals three different types of responses to the ESF. In ‘transformer-cases’, both usage of the ESF and change brought by it can be observed. In ‘cream-skimmer-cases’, only usage but no change was measured, and in ‘refusenik-cases’, neither usage nor change was detected. While usage of the ESF can be explained by individual motivation of local actors or the incentivizing dimension of the Funds, change is apparently more complex.
Eric Doehne - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Deterioration of dolostone by magnesium sulphate salt: an example of incompatible building materials at Bonaval Monastery, Spain
Construction and Building Materials, 2009Co-Authors: Paula López-arce, Javier García-guinea, David Benavente, Laura Tormo, Eric DoehneAbstract:Ministry of Science and Technology JCCM, Toledo (Spain) and the European Social Fund; Spanish projects C.I.C.Y.T.-CGL2004-03564/BTE and MATERNAS-S-0505/MAT/000094.
Codruşa Mare - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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a what if analysis for sound financial management decisions in romanian European Social Fund grants evaluation
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2014Co-Authors: Cristian Dogar, Codruşa MareAbstract:Abstract European Commission trusted for implementation the European Social Fund (ESF) to Member States through a commonly agreed decentralized management system, including compliance to the “sound financial management” principle within the Members’ State designated Authorities obligations. While implementing ESF, Romania should comply too with this principle all projects cycle life: national ESF programming, launching calls for grant proposals, evaluating applications and contracting, monitoring and disbursing sums. Even if performance's basis is put in the programming phase, grant assessment phase stays as the most important in fixing each grant's future performance and the program's performance framework as well. Our study tends to enhance the importance of assessment process for sound financial management implementation in a “what if” analysis based on potential financial corrections applied due to a potential deviation of proposed costs from fixed standard cost. Conclusions lead us to a number of scenarios that may be practically used for assisting management's decision and reporting towards a sound ESF implementation in Romania.
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A “What if” Analysis for Sound Financial Management Decisions in Romanian European Social Fund Grants Evaluation☆
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2014Co-Authors: Cristian Dogar, Codruşa MareAbstract:Abstract European Commission trusted for implementation the European Social Fund (ESF) to Member States through a commonly agreed decentralized management system, including compliance to the “sound financial management” principle within the Members’ State designated Authorities obligations. While implementing ESF, Romania should comply too with this principle all projects cycle life: national ESF programming, launching calls for grant proposals, evaluating applications and contracting, monitoring and disbursing sums. Even if performance's basis is put in the programming phase, grant assessment phase stays as the most important in fixing each grant's future performance and the program's performance framework as well. Our study tends to enhance the importance of assessment process for sound financial management implementation in a “what if” analysis based on potential financial corrections applied due to a potential deviation of proposed costs from fixed standard cost. Conclusions lead us to a number of scenarios that may be practically used for assisting management's decision and reporting towards a sound ESF implementation in Romania.
Eduardo Tome - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The European Social Fund in the Visegrad countries in the 2007-2013 programming phase
European Journal of Training and Development, 2019Co-Authors: Eduardo Tome, Katarzyna Tracz-krupaAbstract:Purpose The purpose of this paper is to define the impact of the investment in training in education by the European Social Fund (ESF) in four Eastern countries, namely, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Hungary. Those countries have some political, cultural, Social and economic similarities and share some common ground in the human resource development (HRD) sectors. Design/methodology/approach The authors use the human capital theory with some extensions to analyze the context, operations and impacts of the ESF in the Visegrad four (V4) countries between 2007 and 2013. The authors use three levels of methodology to access each one of those problems. Findings The authors conclude that the ESF helped building the vocational training system in those countries, and to help them get near the equilibrium of high skills of the V4 Western European neighbors, and therefore, this one was a success story. However, quality issues remain to be addressed that may hinder the continuation of the success in the future. Research limitations/implications The research could be enlarged in time and space and deepened in terms of methodology. This is one a first clarifying step. Theoretical work should become aware of the dichotomy between absorption and scientific logic. Practical implications Detailed and precise evaluation practices must be implemented to guide and assess the policy. Social implications Precisely because Funds are scarce this paper enlights the dilemma and the tension between quantity and quality in the European HRD policy, this is an important Social problem. Originality/value The study is original because even if the HRD in those countries had already been studied (Sheehan and Buchelt, 2016), no study analyzing specifically the ESF in those countries has been carried out so far. The authors use an innovative methodology and address questions on context, operations and impact, which are also innovative and very relevant.
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the European Social Fund in the visegrad countries in the 2007 2013 programming phase
European Journal of Training and Development, 2019Co-Authors: Eduardo Tome, Katarzyna TraczkrupaAbstract:The purpose of this paper is to define the impact of the investment in training in education by the European Social Fund (ESF) in four Eastern countries, namely, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Hungary. Those countries have some political, cultural, Social and economic similarities and share some common ground in the human resource development (HRD) sectors.,The authors use the human capital theory with some extensions to analyze the context, operations and impacts of the ESF in the Visegrad four (V4) countries between 2007 and 2013. The authors use three levels of methodology to access each one of those problems.,The authors conclude that the ESF helped building the vocational training system in those countries, and to help them get near the equilibrium of high skills of the V4 Western European neighbors, and therefore, this one was a success story. However, quality issues remain to be addressed that may hinder the continuation of the success in the future.,The research could be enlarged in time and space and deepened in terms of methodology. This is one a first clarifying step. Theoretical work should become aware of the dichotomy between absorption and scientific logic.,Detailed and precise evaluation practices must be implemented to guide and assess the policy.,Precisely because Funds are scarce this paper enlights the dilemma and the tension between quantity and quality in the European HRD policy, this is an important Social problem.,The study is original because even if the HRD in those countries had already been studied (Sheehan and Buchelt, 2016), no study analyzing specifically the ESF in those countries has been carried out so far. The authors use an innovative methodology and address questions on context, operations and impact, which are also innovative and very relevant.
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human resource development in smes within the European Social Fund in poland research findings and international perspective
Management Sciences. Nauki o Zarządzaniu, 2019Co-Authors: Katarzyna Traczkrupa, Eduardo TomeAbstract:The paper aims to examine the Human Resource Development (HRD) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) Funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) in Poland between 2007 and 2013. The research is based on theories that support HRD investment specifically in SMEs, and uses the Human Capital Theory (HCT) with some extensions. The paper addresses the question of public support in HRD and international support for development purposes. Finally it stresses that the support may have national and international implications. The research methodology involved a series of computer assisted telephone interviews (CATI) in a sample of 44 SMEs that received EU Funding for HRD. It also included computer assisted personal interviews (CAPI) with experts in the ESF, participant observation and analysis of the project documentation. The findings indicate that the ESF effort of international scope had a positive impact in Polish SMEs.
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Human Resource Development in SMEs Within the European Social Fund in Poland – Research Findings and International Perspective
Management Sciences, 2019Co-Authors: Katarzyna Tracz-krupa, Eduardo TomeAbstract:The paper aims to examine the Human Resource Development (HRD) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) Funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) in Poland between 2007 and 2013. The research is based on theories that support HRD investment specifically in SMEs, and uses the Human Capital Theory (HCT) with some extensions. The paper addresses the question of public support in HRD and international support for development purposes. Finally it stresses that the support may have national and international implications. The research methodology involved a series of computer assisted telephone interviews (CATI) in a sample of 44 SMEs that received EU Funding for HRD. It also included computer assisted personal interviews (CAPI) with experts in the ESF, participant observation and analysis of the project documentation. The findings indicate that the ESF effort of international scope had a positive impact in Polish SMEs.
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The European Social Fund: a very specific case instrument of HRD policy
European Journal of Training and Development, 2013Co-Authors: Eduardo TomeAbstract:Purpose – This paper aims to review the intervention of the European Social Fund (ESF) as an instrument of human resource development (HRD) policies in the European labor market. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses an economic background, and reviews the official documents produced by the ESF during its history to try to define its economic impact. Findings – The paper concludes that the ESF was mainly a force of absorption of Funds, which were sent from the European Union (EU) budget to certain regions. Research limitations/implications – The absorption logic has the implication that it is doubtful that the ESF completely pursued its aims, because the urge to absorb money somehow overshadowed the need to use it efficiently. Originality/value – This is the first time the ESF action has been reviewed in one single paper from an economic point-of-view.
