The Changing Business Landscape of Romania

Romania stands at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Since 1990, when the country experienced the bloodiest revolution of all of the Warsaw Pact members, Romania has gone through withering change. While the formal transition from a totalitarian, communist state was completed in 2007 with Romania’s accession to the European Union, the adaptation of the nation’s people and business climate to a market-based economy is a daily occurrence.

The purpose of this chapter is to present a coherent analysis of the multifield structure of organizational knowledge. This new analysis goes beyond the metaphor of knowledge as stuff, or knowledge as stocks and flows, to the metaphor of knowledge as energy. The organizational knowledge is considered as a dynamic integration of the cognitive knowledge field, emotional knowledge field, and spiritual knowledge field. The chapter evidences the main characteristics of these fields and then describes the multiple forms of knowledge. Cognitive knowledge, emotional knowledge, and spiritual knowledge constitute the fundamental triple helix of the organizational knowledge field. The chapter advances the hypothesis of knowledge transformation from one form into another one, especially cognitive knowledge transformation into emotional knowledge, and of the emotional knowledge into the cognitive knowledge.

The twenty-first century offers new challenges for the global economy. Globalization is reflected in the cross-border trade in goods and services, international financial flows, and increasing flows of labor. On the score of the last one, for international business, culture is an important factor. The importance of national culture ensues from three points. Firstly, the nations are political units rooted in their history; secondly, the nationality has a symbolic value to people, and thirdly, the human thinking is conditioned by national cultural factors (Hofstede 1983). The aim of the research carried out by the Strategic Management Research Group was to study the characteristics and influences of national culture in different respects. The first idea was to identify the impact between cultural dimensions—measured by Fons Trompenaars—and national competitiveness of a country measured by International Institute for Management Development (IMD). Out of the cultural features, achieved status and neutral orientation are those that favorably influence competitiveness. The next purpose was to reveal that specific knowledge-sharing type and those competence groups achieved status and neutral orientation, as dominant dimensions of the national culture profile related to competitiveness. Based on these results, the Research Group has been interested on whether differences can be revealed on the individual level within these competence groups. By selecting middle managers as a target group, an empirical survey has been conducted, during which 400 middle managers working at medium- and large-sized enterprises in Hungary were investigated. The examined individual characteristics of middle managers were functional area, working years, and age. The results have shown that three competence groups (methodological competences needed for thinking, methodological competences used for work method and style, and social competences connected with communication skills) differ regarding these individual characteristics.

In recent years, consumers, producers as well as retailers have exhibited a growing tendency toward healthy, highly nutritious, functional, and, obviously, organic foods. Given that many European states have provided government grants for organic foods, these have become more easily accessible to consumers, both financially and in terms of the place where they can be procured. A field research conducted through the observational method reveals that an increasing number of Romanian retailers have included organic food in their assortment, both under the producer and their own brand. The research as a whole identified 15 different ranges of organic food distributed to hyper- and supermarkets as well as to specialty and convenience stores. The retail chains carry a wide range of organic articles and the customers are sometimes willing to pay an extra price of 50 up to 100 % higher than that of the conventional products. Supplemented by a semi-structured interview applied to various experts of Romanian environmental movements (academicians, representatives of producers, processors, specialty associations, control and certification bodies, and authorities empowered to enforce and verify compliance with quality standards, customers), the observation attempted to determine the degree to which organic products are known and the implications of their being consumed by the customers. Although some respondents are not fully aware of how relevant it is to consume mainly organic products, the conducted interviews revealed the respondent’s increased interest in the issues related to promoting health and a lifestyle in accordance with the principles of a balanced diet. It is advisable that the conclusions of the present study should be turned to good account by means of an active marketing policy so that an “organic diet mentality” may be developed among the Romanian customers.

This chapter assesses the degree of readiness of Romania to adopt euro mainly based on the optimal currency area (OCA) criteria. Our findings suggest that the correlation of the business cycle in the case of Romania is one of the lowest among the new member states (NMS), although it has increased in the last few years. Also, using a structural VAR approach, we estimated the similarity between demand and supply shocks between NMS and the eurozone, showing that the demand shocks are still negatively correlated with eurozone for some NMS, including Romania. The main conclusion of our chapter is that Romania, as well as some other NMS countries, still needs time to progress on the real convergence criteria in order to adopt euro without major costs.

Strategic decisions regarding future energy production and the resulting energy consumption patterns at the general societal level, also selecting the respective regional or national patterns, are both essential and highly controversial. Alternative technological paths which may be taken into account are surprisingly diverse and sometimes interrelated. However, the spectrum of alternatives ranges from “predominantly conceptual” to “well grounded in practical terms”, and hence, they are associated with many types of uncertainties stemming from technological to societal risks including for instance acceptance barriers. Perceptual, psychological and the socio-economic factors which may not be universal across different economic regions are involved in a stable adoption processes of new energy solutions: think, for example, of a country like Germany which “owns access” to virtually all energy alternatives and may consider abandoning the most controversial technologies like nuclear. An emerging country like Romania, however, which is not actively pursuing but a few of the available energy technologies may consider diversifying its future energy portfolio. The present contribution argues in favour of positively considering marketing-type recommendation as a complementary factor to “purely political” decision finding in the complex domain of future energy production and consumption, in that these marketing-related mechanisms must not “just manipulate” but can genuinely aid the adaptation processes of “ubiquitous social computation” which is unfolding anyway in modern present-day societies. Such adoption processes are based on collective information-processing mechanisms like those involved in the functioning of markets and by using networking of persons, attitudes and ideas. We also discuss whether such processes may be used in order to “predict” mutually acceptable new regional energy solutions. The objective is to propose a problem-oriented recommendation mechanism but not that of naming the most preferable future energy solutions.

The economic crisis and the increased business environment uncertainty have led to shrinking the business figures and adopting cost-cutting programs in many industries, which had affected the service acquisition procedures. Companies asking for transport services and, also, the service providers have been improving the planning and decision making processes, asking for software systems adapted to the new business models. The multi-agent systems (MAS) represent an adequate approach in addressing these rapidly changing business needs. The chapter presents a multi-agent system, named TranServ for transport services acquisition, developed by the authors, in line with several FIPA compliant standards. In order to justify the development solution, the authors analyze several MAS standards and methodologies. For designing the system, the MASA methodology is applied. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) tree algorithm is used to model the agents’ behavior. The implementation is done on JADE Platform. The authors will continue the development of the system, improving the auction algorithm and refining the criteria for choosing the best service offers.

In 2011, the economic crisis generated public discussions related to the performance measurement and poor management of state-owned enterprises (SOE) in Romania. The debate revealed the fact that the existence of present SOE, including their creation and strategies, is undermined by an unclear conceptual frame. The study analyzes the theoretical roots of some critical demarcations in the public sector in order to explain the dilemmas or some controversial approaches in the policies regarding the SOEs management. The map of discussions for building the theoretical background of the study takes as main milestones some references related to the issue of public sector demarcations, to the privatization of SOEs and to the organization and management performance appraisals of the SOEs in the specific Romanian context. The methodology of study is tailored to the Romanian context. A collection of case studies and disparate but relevant facts are preferred to statistical tools. They are used to explain a very strange behavior of organizations in this dynamic and theoretically unclear environment. The state of the Romanian public sector is explained first as a result of the national legal context. But the new public sector is also the result of the economic reform, including the privatization after 1990. All these elements triggered some local characteristics of the SOEs management. A representative case for the process of restructuration can be found in the energy sector, with a special significance for the national economy as a “model”. The problems of organizational performance and management appraisal in Romanian SOE are present in discussions using the so-called antimanagement concept. Some facts are brought forth to illustrate the concept.

The cutthroat market competition for gaining competitive advantage and, implicitly, extra profits often makes companies intervene in competition mechanisms by closing deals or initiating anticompetitive practices. In order to avoid falling under the incidence of competition law, companies should apply a competition strategy and a competition audit. Our paper sets as a general objective the analysis of how companies on the Romanian market know, understand, and apply the coordinates of a competition strategy. Specific objectives target the factorial analysis of the influencers of the business strategy of the considered companies. For the factorial analysis, we have performed nonparametric tests of the answers given by 425 managers of companies on the Romanian market to certain questions in the questionnaire, in order to assess the importance of specific factors (company size, experience in the market, etc.) on the tested aspects regarding the business and, respectively, competition strategy and the risk of getting involved in anticompetitive behaviors.

The consumer behavior is an important aspect for the way marketing departments develop their strategies. One of the biggest challenges in consumer behavior analysis is to determine its dynamic. On one hand, there are changes at the level of each individual when passing from one stage of his life to another, but on the other hand, there are also changes determined by the society such as changes in values and norms, trends, technological developments. For this reason, in consumer behavior it is important to analyze this dynamic and try to find the reasons for these changes, because only by this forecasts can be made. In this article, there are presented several aspects of the Romanian consumer behavior and its dynamic. There are analyzed the amount spent depending on age, the frequency of buying, the time spend in the store and other aspects regarding the emotional aspects. By analyzing these changes, there can be observed the changes in the consumer behavior from one generation to another.

This chapter discusses green clusters, a new form of economic network in the domain of environmental-friendly businesses, as a cooperation strategy for companies. Cleantech companies, also referred to as green companies or environmental businesses, are companies offering products and services that have a sustainable positive impact on the environment. As technological innovation leads to the development of such businesses, and as green activities often require high expenses, companies became interested in establishing green clusters. By being part of the cluster, cleantech companies could achieve technological synergy, attract financial support, and collaborate with the governmental sector in order to support their activities. This article analyzes the trends in green clusters’ characteristics and how they can represent a successful cooperation strategy for the green business sector. The methodology used is composed of previous case studies, regarding cleantech businesses and green clusters, as well as a survey performed by the authors. This was conducted on 11 green cluster administrators and individual cluster members. Also, public information of another 70 green clusters, related to cluster members, cluster activities, and other characteristics has been studied. The results of this analysis helped us identify main trends in the green clusters’ field and how they would form a successful corporate strategy.

The concept of integrated marketing communication (IMC) was born in mid-1990s and has been generating many controversies in the literature. The concept has constantly evolved from the simple coordination of promotional tools to a complex strategic process. Due to the modern marketing development, IMC has become an important and complex tool for achieving the goals of a company. Therefore, it is useful to investigate the opportunities to increase IMC impact on consumer behaviour. The purpose of this chapter is twofold: (1) to approach IMC as a complex system which has as communication drivers the four elements of the classical marketing mix (product, price, distribution and marketing communication) and (2) to develop a conceptual model that describes the impact on consumer behaviour. Such model can be used to research the IMC influence on consumer behaviour and, in the same time, could identify the ways to create an effective IMC strategy based on the consumer reactions and requirements.

The study is based on four direct researches in the period July–December 2011 regarding the high school graduates, the university graduates, the teachers, and the employers from the Romanian market. In order to help young people to meet the labor market demands, there is a need of a joint effort from universities and companies by developing internship programs, centers for career guidance and by creating joint research programs. They were questioned 2,047 final-year students from 26 universities and 2,364 final-year high school students from 70 high schools. Both samples were obtained using the multistage random probability sampling method. Data were collected using a questionnaire with similar topics on both studies, so that data collected can be compared. The main objectives of this research focused on gathering information about students’ opinions on the national education system, evaluation of existing counseling and guidance services, perception of labor market integration and educational/professional route. The main findings are further presented in this chapter.

This chapter focuses on explaining the importance of the faculty-student encounter in a business school, with a new paradigm of quality management that combines the classical view of human resources management with modern relationship marketing. Utilizing the Human Sigma model, which is a modern relationship management instrument for measuring and aligning the interest of both customers and service providers, we measured the student-faculty encounter at a small Romanian Business School (RBS) in order to enhance the quality of the education. We begin by discussing the importance of quality in education, then we outline the patterns of engagement, and finally, we present our research findings at the RBS.

Decision-making plays an important part in management and business. There are numerous systematic methods and models which provide assistance in the decision-making process. Classical fuzzy sets (the concept of Fuzzy Set was introduced by Zadeh in 1965) and intuitionistic fuzzy sets (a concept introduced by Atanasov in 1986) represent powerful tools in modeling complex phenomena which exhibit shades of difference and involve imprecise information. The paper presents two algorithms for the consultation process using the Delphi Method and several algorithms for multi-attribute decision models, modified for attributes values given under the form of FS and/or IFS. The devised algorithms are analyzed comparatively using numeric examples.

Contemporary business environment is becoming more complex and globalized. In order to maintain its competitive advantage, the organization has to develop effective long-term relationships and innovative approaches with its stakeholders, based on innovative research and methodologies. These relationships can be capitalized by maximizing customer lifetime value, customer profitability and by adopting innovative and creative approaches in the service marketing. Oftentimes even large corporations have a vague knowledge of marketing, especially in the service industry, and tend to operate with traditional and mostly transactional tools. Due to today’s competitive environment, the customers’ increased capabilities of choice and specialization, the importance of innovation in service marketing has never been as high. Developing an integrative model of work between the relationship marketing and innovation in telecom service industry will enable the company to achieve superior efficiency and build long-term competitive advantages. Aim of this chapter is to provide a conceptual and methodological framework for innovative relationship market approaches for telecom industry in Romania. Moreover, the purpose of the work is to provide a broad perspective on a dynamic industry within an emerging market. The key determinants, particular challenges and factors relative to the national telecom-leading players are underlined.