The contemporary economic and financial ecosystem is undergoing a structural realignment, heavily driven by accelerating technological transformation, macroeconomic volatility, and an unprecedented emphasis on sustainability. In this dynamic environment, corporate governance, digital innovation, financial reporting, and ESG criteria are no longer independent operational. Instead, they function as interconnected variables that redefine how organizations mitigate risks, ensure financial stability, and build long-term corporate value.

This new issue of The Financial Studies Journal brings together rigorous academic and empirical research aimed at narrowing the information asymmetry in our field. The contributors in this volume link theoretical models with operational practice, addressing the precise friction points where digitalization meets professional and structural responsibility.

A significant part of this issue assesses how digital ecosystems disrupt traditional accounting frameworks and administrative structures. In Digital Financial Reporting in Public Universities: Enhancing Transparency and Accountability, the research focuses on institutional transparency, analyzing how modern reporting systems act as a catalyst for public trust. Expanding on the human capital aspect, Accounting Information in the Digital Age: Preparing for the Future investigates the structural skills and professional adaptations necessary for practitioners to maintain a distinct competitive advantage as automated frameworks evolve.

Concurrently, ERP Systems and AI in the Accounting Profession: A Bibliometric Analysis maps the literature to demonstrate how intelligent automation and enterprise systems are fundamentally re-shaping executive decision-making and operational efficiency.

However, innovation must always be balanced against structural exposure. Innovation and Security: How Cloud Management and Accounting Are Shaping the Future analyzes this delicate equilibrium, providing a strategic view on integrating cloud capabilities while managing escalating cyber risks. Taking this further, The Advantages and Risks of Organizational Decision-Making Digitalization: A Comparative Bibliometric Approach to an Emergent Literature contrasts the concrete productivity gains driven by algorithms against the broader ethical and operational exposures stemming from over-reliance on automated data logic.

The shift toward corporate sustainability and ethical frameworks represents another core thematic pillar of this volume. As ESG compliance integrates into standard regulatory frameworks, distinguishing between authentic strategic alignment and merely symbolic reporting is vital. Non-Financial Reporting and the Risk of Greenwashing: Insights from the Literature addresses this head-on, investigating the structural tensions underlying sustainability disclosures. Complementing this analysis, Ethics, Corporate Governance and Professional Responsibility: A Conceptual Model for the Modern Accountant in the Digitalization and ESG Era outlines a revised framework for the profession, arguing that modern practitioners must serve as an ethical anchor and a strategic guide within the governance architecture.

On a macroeconomic scale, financial stability remains deeply correlated with human behavior and market literacy. Financial Literacy and Investment Behavior: Key Determinants of Living Standards in Eastern Europe demonstrates that financial education is a fundamental driver of economic inclusion and social cohesion.

Looking closely at market dynamics, Macroeconomic Trend Dominance: A Multiresolution Analysis of the BET Index introduces a multiresolution methodology to capture how external macro shocks propagate through the Romanian capital market across different time horizons. In parallel, Impact of Macroeconomic Factors on the Insurance Sector in Romania – Analysis of Performance and Stability evaluates how these identical systemic pressures stress the capital adequacy and structural resilience of the domestic insurance industry.

Finally, the impact of compounding external crises is examined in Negative Trends in Financial Reporting During Crisis: An Applied Study on Strategic Companies in Romania. This paper offers an essential, data-driven assessment of how geopolitical friction, inflation, and market volatility degrade financial reporting quality and organizational performance—providing critical insights for an economy continuously under pressure.

The research compiled in this volume confirms that modern financial and accounting studies cannot be conducted in isolation. Navigating in today complex economic landscape requires a highly interdisciplinary approach—one that actively integrates technology, regulatory evolution, and market behavior.

We express our sincere gratitude to the authors, peer reviewers, and the entire editorial board for their intellectual rigor and dedication to this publication. We trust that the analyses and empirical findings presented in this issue will stimulate professional dialogue, foster new research collaborations, and provide base for legal frameworks, for policymakers and market practitioners navigating the digital and sustainable economy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of various technology proxies on the size of the economic and financial crime. Our study uses data for the member states of the European Union throughout the 2005-2022 time-period. The methodology involves a linear and a quadratic approach of the data as well. This study demonstrates a nonlinear (quadratic) relationship between digitalization and economic and financial crime in the European Union, highlighting the existence of a threshold beyond which technological development reduces crime. Several robustness assessments show that our major findings are generally stable to alternative model specifications and proxy variables. This study might be extremely useful to states’ decision-makers, governmental organizations and non-governmental enterprises. Our findings highlight the importance of advancing digital infrastructure alongside regulatory and institutional capacity to effectively combat technology-enabled crime.

This paper analyzes the impact of macroeconomic factors on the performance and stability of the insurance sector in Romania. The main objective of this study is to empirically highlight the existence of a significant relationship between macroeconomic indicators and the performance of insurance companies. The novelty of the research is related to the use of insurance sector indicators, with the analysis focusing exclusively on Romania to capture the specific characteristics of this sector within a national economic framework. The variables used in the analysis reflect both insurance sector performance and relevant macroeconomic factors, covering the period 2005-2024. For the econometric analysis, a linear regression model is employed to investigate the relationships between the selected variables. Thus, the performance of the insurance sector is measured using return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE), while the explanatory variables are GDP per capita, inflation rate, external balance of goods and services as a percentage of GDP, degree of urbanization, and internet access. The results show that the performance and stability of the insurance sector in Romania are influenced by macroeconomic developments and socio-economic factors, confirming the existence of a significant relationship between economic development and insurance sector performance.

This paper examines the evolution of public expenditure structure and its implications for fiscal sustainability in Romania over the period 2000–2024, in the context of increasing budgetary pressures and macroeconomic volatility. The study employs a quantitative approach based on log-transformed multiple regression models estimated using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), enabling the assessment of the impact of fiscal variables on economic performance and the determinants of government consumption. The results indicate that tax revenues have a positive and statistically significant effect on economic performance, supporting fiscal sustainability. However, public expenditure is dominated by rigid components, particularly government consumption and current expenditures, which limit fiscal flexibility. Public investment does not show immediate positive effects, suggesting inefficiencies or delayed returns, while increases in public employment and consumption further intensify fiscal rigidity. The study’s main contribution lies in its integrated analysis of revenue and expenditure structures within a unified econometric framework, providing a clearer understanding of how fiscal composition influences sustainability. The findings highlight that fiscal sustainability depends not only on the level of public expenditure, but also on its composition and efficiency, offering relevant implications for improving fiscal discipline and policy effectiveness.

This paper applies multiresolution analysis based on the Maximal Overlap Discrete Wavelet Transform (MODWT) to investigate the structural dynamics of the BET index from the perspective of systemic risk and capital market dynamics in Romania. Using a six-scale decomposition of daily prices over the period 2024–2025, total variability is separated into two fundamental components: the long-term macroeconomic trend (horizons above 64 days) and cyclical oscillations over short and medium horizons (2–64 days).
The empirical results for 2025 indicate an overwhelming dominance of macroeconomic factors, with the trend component explaining 99.15% of total variance, while cyclical oscillations contribute only 0.85%. Within the cyclical component, a clear hierarchy emerges: medium-term cycles (16–64 days) account for over 73% of cyclical variance, while short-term fluctuations (2–8 days) contribute only 12%.
A visual examination of the decomposition over the 2024–2025 period identifies July 2025 as a period with simultaneous amplification across all time scales, from daily volatility to the macroeconomic trend. This simultaneity of amplifications across different time scales represents a distinct pattern observable in the decomposition, coinciding in time with the implementation of electricity price liberalization. The study demonstrates that the variance structure observed in 2025 has implications for risk modeling, as scenarios focused on short-term volatility capture only a minimal fraction of the total observed variability.

The paper focuses on the connection between financial results and corporate risk in the European Industrial Machinery & Equipment industry during the period 2020-2024. The analysis will be conducted using the Refinitiv Eikon database, taking into consideration a representative sample of industrial corporations from Eastern, Northern, Southern, and Western Europe, with special attention paid to the Romanian market. The study examined the relationship between the financial performance ratios (ROA, ROE, and EBITDA Margin) and the key financial risk ratios (liquidity ratios, Financial Leverage Ratio, and Z-score) to establish the association between profitability and financial risk. The empirical study utilized descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients.
The results highlight a significant difference in performance dynamics among regions, with better recovery patterns for Southern and Western Europe and more volatility for Northern Europe following the pandemic. A significant volatility level is shown for Romania, along with a trend of enhancement of financial stability beginning from 2021. The Z-score has a positive correlation with performance, and a weak negative correlation is shown for liquidity ratios with profitability, thereby confirming the liquidity-profitability trade-off hypothesis. Concluding, this analysis finds that financial performance in the industrial sector in Europe is more closely tied to financial stability than to either liquidity or leverage. These findings are important to understand in terms of financial risk and performance management in emerging markets in Europe.

The article investigates the relationship between financial literacy, investment behaviour and living standards in selected Eastern European member states of the European Union. The analysis combines a cross-country descriptive comparative approach with econometric techniques, including Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions and an Instrumental Variables/ Two-Stage Least Squares (IV/2SLS) framework, in order to address the potential endogeneity between investment participation and income. Financial literacy is measured using a composite indicator derived from Eurobarometer 525 (2023), based on the proportion of respondents achieving a high financial literacy score. Investment behaviour is captured through investment participation, proxied by the share of equity and investment fund holdings in the household financial assets. Living standards are assessed using three indicators: median disposable income adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP), income inequality measured by the Gini coefficient and the risk-of-poverty rate over the period 2010-2024. The econometric results reveal a positive and statistically significant association between financial literacy and key welfare indicators, while the direct effect of investment participation appears weaker in baseline specifications. In the instrumental variables framework, where investment participation is instrumented to mitigate potential reverse causality, the estimated impact on income remains positive but is more moderate in magnitude. Although the relatively small number of observations represents a limitation and warrants cautious interpretation, the findings highlight the important role of financial literacy in shaping investment behaviour and contributing to improved economic well-being. These results offer relevant insights for policymakers in countries characterized by lower living standards and comparatively low levels of financial literacy.

The paper provides a synthesis of recent literature on the accounting profession, bringing together ideas from the field of professional ethics, corporate governance and professional responsibility. It shows how digitalization and sustainability requirements are reshaping both the work and the professional identity of contemporary accountants. The paper aims to propose a conceptual model that goes beyond fragmented descriptions of the accountant’s current role. Methodologically, we carefully reviewed the literature, extracting recurring concepts and grouping them inductively into three dimensions: normative (standards, codes of ethics and regulations), functional (assurance activities, internal control, consultancy, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) reporting, and the responsible use of artificial intelligence) and identity-related (values, professional identity, and the social role of accounting work). The results show how compliance pressures, technology and societal expectations are transforming the profession from task-oriented execution to a pronounced advisory role. The paper also explains how governance mechanisms rely on accounting to enhance transparency and to support sustainability objectives, for example under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), where accountants coordinate the collection and validation of ESG indicators across internal and external processes. The contribution of the paper lies in the creation of a conceptual model and in its implications for education, standard setting, and organizational design.

With the digitalization of the decision-making process being a relatively new topic, the specialized literature is still in the process of formation, setting trends and highlighting the advantages and risks that come with it. Like any new field of research, this one also faces a lack of studies as well as limited interest among researchers in exploring the subject. Moreover, in emerging areas, the benefits that a new practice can bring or the dangers it can cause are often among the first and most relevant questions that arise and are analysed. Therefore, the central objective of the paper appears, namely, to examine trends in the specialized literature regarding the advantages and risks of the digitalization the decision-making process. Thus, the paper will focus on conducting and comparing two bibliometric analyses that reflect the two central contexts of the research and will aim to confirm the novelty of the subject, as well as to identify the area of higher interest between the two. Regarding the methodology, the analyses will be carried out using data extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection and will be processed mainly via VOSviewer software. The research results may be used in the future as reference points for a more updated literary base, but at the same time, they will also serve as identifiers of current directions.

This article aims to analyze the negative trends in the financial reporting of Romanian listed companies during the period 2019–2023, marked by successive systemic crises (the COVID-19 pandemic, the energy crisis, and geopolitical instability). The main objectives of the research are to identify changes in key financial performance indicators, to assess the evolution of provisioning behavior, and to examine how risk perceptions are reflected in corporate financial disclosures under conditions of heightened uncertainty.
The study employs a longitudinal research design based on a mixed quantitative–qualitative methodology. Quantitative data were collected manually from audited annual financial statements of five companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, operating in strategic sectors of the Romanian economy (energy, banking, telecommunications, heavy industry, and e-commerce). The analyzed indicators include net profitability, provisions, equity, and debt ratios, covering the period 2019–2023. Qualitative data were extracted from the risk and uncertainty disclosures included in the explanatory notes of the annual reports.
The data were processed using comparative and descriptive analysis, with results consolidated in a multi-year comparative table and complemented by graphical representations to highlight financial dynamics over time. The findings reveal a significant decline in profitability during the crisis peak (2020), accompanied by a substantial increase in provisions, indicating a conservative and anticipatory financial reporting behavior. While some companies demonstrated post-crisis recovery, others exhibited persistent structural vulnerabilities, particularly in terms of leverage.
Overall, the results suggest that financial reporting during crisis periods evolves toward greater prudence and enhanced risk disclosure, reflecting both economic pressures and managerial responses to uncertainty. The study contributes empirical evidence on crisis-induced conservatism in financial reporting and highlights the importance of integrating quantitative performance analysis with qualitative risk assessment.