Romanian SMEs Research Articles

Intertwining entrepreneurial motivation and the global mindset: a look into entrepreneurial profiles and business outcomes

PurposeThis article explores the connections between the entrepreneur's global mindset and entrepreneurial motivation in the quest for determining the underlying relationships among these constructs. The aim of the study resides in the advancement of various entrepreneurial profiles which imply specific configurations of the global mindset and motivational drivers, by also covering their correlations with the business outcomes.Design/methodology/approachData were collected in 2022 from over 100 entrepreneurs operating in the Romanian SMEs sector, using a questionnaire-based survey.FindingsThe results posit that at least three statistically relevant clusters can be observed in the studied population, stemming from the particularities of the entrepreneurs' global mindset. The findings reveal that the levels of development of the entrepreneur's social capital, psychological capital and intellectual capital are linked to different entrepreneurial motivations and impact the company in specific manners.Practical implicationsThe research offers useful cues to the entrepreneurs for identifying prospective partners for their local or cross-border operations.Originality/valueThe results foster a new topical framework for discussion on the motivational configurations of entrepreneurs and the global mindset.

Driving Success: Unveiling the Synergy of E-Marketing, Sustainability, and Technology Orientation in Online SME

In Romania, the pandemic and post-pandemic effects, coupled with the nearly 80% increase in internet service penetration, have led to an extraordinary acceleration of e-commerce activity. Rising rents and operational costs, heightened financial challenges, and the improved quality and accessibility of internet connectivity have prompted some Romanian SMEs to sell their products and services online or through other online communication networks. In this context, it becomes essential to conduct marketing research to identify factors that could stimulate business performance. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of e-marketing orientation, sustainability orientation, and technology orientation on the performance of online SMEs in Romania. Hypothesis testing and validation of the proposed construct model were conducted using structural equation modeling with partial least squares (SEM-PLS) and multi-group analysis (PLS-MGA). The research results have indicated that all three independent variables have positive and significant effects on online SMEs’ business performance. Finally, the study suggests that SME managers should focus on integrating these three variables and on selling products and services both nationally and internationally through the internet if they aim for long-term business performance growth.

Digital Transformation: A quantitative analysis of Romanian SMEs

Abstract With the expansion and omnipresence of digital technologies in most aspects of human life, organizations have felt the need to implement changes. Thus, digital transformation has become imperative, with organizations having to adapt to the new standards imposed by a digitalized world. This paper analyses the digital transformation in Romanian SMEs using a methodology based on quantitative analysis of data collected through a questionnaire. The aim is to understand how these companies’ approach and implement digital transformation, as well as the impact of this process on management strategies and business models. The analysis of the quantitative research results will focus on the demographic profile of the companies, the stage of the digital transformation process, the impact on business performance, investments in digital transformation and predictive models. This work makes a significant contribution to understanding and promoting digital transformation among SMEs, providing a specific and relevant insight into the Romanian SME context.

A Quantitative Analysis on the Impact of Artificial Intelligence Solutions in Accounting and Audit

The purpose of this article is to highlight the role of technological, organizational and environmental contexts in the case of the implementation of Artificial Intelligence in the financial sector. As a methodology, the author used statistical tests applied to primary data collected by means of a questionnaire in the form of an online survey with firms that have accounting, financial audit and tax consulting activities. For the study, based on the analysis of specialized literature, seven corresponding hypotheses were developed for three research questions based for the purpose to find out if the implementation of solutions based on Artificial Intelligence is influenced by the technological, organizational and environmental context (TOE Framework, for short). The TOE Framework elements used in this paper are: technological readiness, IT infrastructure, relative advantage, organizational readiness, top management support, industry characteristics, and government regulations. The result of the study shows that artificial intelligence in the field of financial services is significantly influenced by: IT infrastructure, top management support, industrial characteristics, government regulations. The primary data used were collected from large accounting companies and Romanian SMEs.

Factors That Influence the Implementation of M-Commerce by Romanian SMEs During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Factors That Influence the Implementation of M-Commerce by Romanian SMEs During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Leadership Influence on Work Satisfaction Level in COVID-19 times in Romanian SMES

Abstract Choosing the right leadership style is a constant concern in business management because it can directly influence its financial results. Through this paper, we wanted to check to what extent the leadership style can influence the level of satisfaction of the employee, his desire to change jobs, and to what extent it accentuates or improves the effects generated by the COVID-19 pandemic (anxiety, work from home, the economic crisis generated]. We also wanted to check to what extent a high degree of job satisfaction can negatively influence the employee’s desire to look for a new job. In the empirical research, we used the MLQ questionnaire to determine the management style, and we used the Likert scale for other variables.

From Fragility to Resilience—How Prepared Was the Romanian Business Environment to Face the COVID-19 Crisis?

The issue of business resilience is a topical one, in the context of which a large number of the companies on the market have faced many challenges in the last two years, raising the issue of market survival. But was the Romanian business environment ready to face the COVID-19 crisis? How prepared is it to continue to face the obstacles posed by the pandemic? The purpose of this paper is to identify the main effects that the pandemic has generated on Romanian SMEs, while presenting the results of a study on this topic. We proceeded to determine the level of familiarity of respondents on the evolution of SMEs during the pandemic and the study of their level of interest, on the effects generated by the current epidemiological context, and on the evolution of the business environment, while analysing the level of optimism/pessimism of the respondents, regarding the general evolution of the Romanian business environment. Although some companies are open to implementing change, there is also a significant percentage of firms that, for various reasons, do not consider making major changes in the near future, either because they are not aware of the need for change or out of fear.

Framework for assessing innovation capacity and business efficiency in Romanian SMEs

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to provide a new framework for assessing the innovation capacity and efficiency in Romanian small enterprises and start-ups. In this sense, a systematic literature review has been employed in order to obtain a clear understanding of the existing knowledge and to critically evaluate the existing solutions. In addition, considering the European Union objectives regarding innovation and sustainable development, this paper investigates the present situation of Romania by interpreting the official European Commission reports and current research papers. Considering the importance of regional innovation advancement and that of creating economic growth through competitiveness, this paper scrutinizes several concepts from the scientific literature, including regional innovation governance, entrepreneurship and innovation efficiency with the final purpose of developing a framework applicable for Romania. Taking into consideration the relatively low scores of Romanian regions regarding innovativeness and technological advancement, this paper attempts to provide a clearer understanding of the applicable factors that can be used for measuring innovation performance. The proposed framework focuses on the importance of entrepreneurship and the development of new business models in order to efficiently assess the innovative endeavors of enterprises. All things considered, this paper provides both theoretical and managerial contributions and possibility for further investigations addressed at specific Romanian regions and business sectors.

The Role of Owner-Managers in Shaping CSR Activity of Romanian SMEs

Background: While corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a field of study that has gained popularity in the last years, the approaches of small and medium enterprises’ (SME) contributions to social responsibility are under debate. Moreover, studies on Romanian CSR demonstrate the incremental development of such practices, while the social responsibility of Romanian small business is an understudied topic. In this paper we present data regarding the role of owner-managers in shaping the CSR actions of their SMEs in Romania, along with their opinions on what social responsibility is. Methods: We analyze two sources of data: quantitative research, based on 109 questionnaires collected from SMEs in the western part of Romania, and also a qualitative study, based on 17 interviews with owner-managers of small businesses. The quantitative data presents the reality of social responsibility actions and the relationship with manager’s attitudes, while the qualitative focuses on a better understanding of owner-managers opinions on social responsibility. Results: Our data confirms the high impact of owner-managers’ values and orientations in shaping the degree and forms of the CSR of their firms, and reveals definitions of CSR given by practitioners. Conclusions: Our data reveals that the way managers’ see the role of business in providing social welfare influences their decisions to participate in different types of CSR actions. Through interviews we show that managers, whether their firm has formal CSR actions or not, consider being fair and doing business at their best as part of CSR. Those that also displayed other forms of CSR are those who considered it their duty to give back to the community. The interest of stakeholders was displayed mostly by those who have incremental interest in CSR.

Performance Improvements for Romanian SMEs and Their Predictors

The corporate governance of Romanian SMEs states that these companies have been less and less able to generate performance over the last few years. An average number of 1.273 SMEs per year have been included in the study, coming from all the eight local development regions of Romania. The data covers a period of 14 financial years, between 2005 and 2018. The findings showed, after statistical computations using regression models, that the performance of Romanian SMEs depended on the level of external managerial consultancy that corporate governance received from specialized companies and on the increasing level of wages. Given the high flexibility potential of SMEs, these choices are seen as tailored actions and strategies to compete successfully and support sustainable performance in the local context where its trend is downward. Moreover, the act of achieving performance at present is upheld by the performance attained in previous financial years. The impact of these factors could be established as a matter of priority in a long-term approach, for a time lag of up to 3 years. Moreover, the performance of companies covering all the local development regions is influenced only to a small degree by taxation levels, by the frequency of tax supervision performed by government institutions, by the capacity of corporate governance to be up to date with legislative change or by the self-financing of the activity conducted by the companies.

Adoption of Green Environmental Practices in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: Entrepreneur and Business Policies Patterns in Romania

Current research shows that SMEs’ social and environmental actions are fragmented and informal, and few have formal policies and intentions. At the same time, many SMEs are engaged with environmental policies, often not knowing it. Concurrently, there is a gap between the pro-environmental attitudes of the SMEs managers, who are often seen as the main drivers for the firm’s behavior, and the policies implemented in reality in their firms. To this end, our research’s objective is to explore pro-environmental behavior, both at the individual and firm level, to identify connections between these levels and measures but also with firm’s and managers’ demographics, based on a study of Romanian SMEs. The descriptive analysis and factor analysis including tetrachoric correlation methods were used to explore these behaviors and the associations between them. The results confirm the research’s hypothesis and show that there are positive connections between the “green” behaviors at the individual level and in the SME context. Moreover, comparative analysis provided evidence of differences in the adoption of environmental practices, which were based on the firm’s demographics and manager’s characteristics. Simultaneously, five typologies of pro-environmental behavior in SMEs were identified and described, depending on the additional investment necessary and allocated resources, on the changes in organizational structure, and on the manager’s personal involvement. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the environmental improvement policies in SMEs and may help policy-makers tailor interventions and SMEs managers learn from good practices of their peers.

Case study concerning successful Romanian SMEs development by students education and entrepreneurial training

The European Commission has published in 2020 the SMEs Strategy for a Sustainable and Digital Europe that aims to increase the number of SMEs engaged in sustainable business practices, as well as the SMEs number that use digital technologies. Important opportunities for SMEs can be provided by digitization, to improve the production processes efficiency and the ability to innovate products and business models, by using advanced disruptive technologies. Good management is needed for a successful SME, education and entrepreneurship training have the role of consolidating business knowledge and skills. Educational activities and skills upgrading are essential for all SMEs managers and employees. Romania is on the last place in EU, regarding SMEs number and it ranks 11th place out of 28, in terms of connectivity. Regarding the digital maturity of Romanian SMEs, the White Papers on Romanian SMEs presents their main working elements: computer, e-mail applications, internet, intranet, social networks, the company's own website, online sales / purchases transactions. The objectives of the Bachelor's degree specialization of Economic Engineering in Mechanical field and Industrial Entrepreneurship Master are students training and education, in order to be able to sustain digitization and sustainable technologies. The university curriculum and the educational disciplines offered by the Economic Engineering in Mechanical field specialization and Industrial Entrepreneurship Master is connected to the society requirements and must follow the economic trend, by educating, training and getting good specialists. Keywords: SMEs development, education, entrepreneurship

Facilitators of and Barriers to Sustainable Development in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: A Descriptive Exploratory Study in Romania

In the context of growing concerns regarding the deterioration of the environment and the increase in social inequalities, the concept of sustainability emerged as a response of companies, in order to contribute to community goodwill. The drivers and obstacles for the businesses engaging in sustainable policies have been explored at large by scientific literature. However, research gaps were observed, namely regarding SMEs, that tend to have a less formal and more fragmented approach to sustainability. The goal of our study is to determine the main barriers and facilitators for sustainability that Romanian SMEs face, and the connections between them and with the firms’ characteristics. Our study identifies the main barriers and facilitators for adopting sustainable practices in SMEs located in Romania, based on a study on a panel of 71 firms. The association rule method of data mining and quantitative statistic methods were used to explore barrier–facilitator relationships and how they vary depending on the firms’ or managers’ characteristics. The results show a wide range of drivers and obstacles for implementing sustainability in SMEs, while identifying connections between different barriers and facilitators and correlations with the firms’ characteristics. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of factors that impact sustainable behavior in SMEs and identify further aspects to be explored.

Teleworking Perspectives for Romanian SMEs after the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract The crisis caused by COVID-19, made us rethink our perception of the way of life. Traffic restrictions, isolation, quarantine, the need for social distance have generated new behavior by transferring null activities in the online environment. The advantage today is that the 21st century is characterized by the presence of information technology and its rapid development. The telecommute proposed by Nilles (1994), became in 2020 a very topical concept, due to the special situation in which the whole of humanity is. Although both employers and employees have refused the teleworking formula for a long time, it has now become the only possibility to maintain an acceptable level of activity. The rapid evolution of ITC technologies and applications, the entry on the labor market of the M generation have contributed to the increase of favorability for telework, in 2018 it being included in the Romanian legislation. The methodology for this article was to analyze the Romanian Classification of Activities in the National Economy (CAEN) to find out in which domains do Romanian SMEs prefer to activate and to find out the resistance to telecommuting as a way of work by finding out which of these economic sectors have implemented day to day teleworking long ago and which will. An empirical analysis of every domain was complemented by the survey results to verify to which extent telecommuting is feasible in Romanian SMEs, especially during and after the Coronavirus pandemic. It was necessary to analyze of Eurofound statistics regarding living and working during the COVID-19 pandemic to find out correlations and differences between the authors’ findings and the EU27 baseline.

Eco-innovation Capability and Sustainability Driven Innovation Practices in Romanian SMEs

This study examines the influence of eco-innovation capability on sustainability driven innovation practices in SMEs. In this study, eco-innovation capability is represented by four factors—internal setting, strategies, operations and structure—while sustainability driven innovation practices are represented by three types of practices—process, organizational and product. The direct relationship between eco-innovation capability and sustainability driven innovation practices is statistically tested by using a sample of 397 Romanian manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises using PLS–SEM and SmartPLS software. The results show that the development of eco-innovation capability has a direct and positive effect on sustainability driven innovation practices employed in manufacturing SMEs by encouraging them to get involved in cleaner production practices, waste handling and recycling on a regular basis or integrate eco-efficiency into their operations, develop new channels for sustainable products or integrate customers’ suggestions or complaints, implement environment management systems, use eco-friendly raw materials or focus on new product development, for instance. Therefore, the paper extends the literature dedicated to eco-innovation by shedding some light on what to focus on when building eco-innovation capability.

High and sustainable growth: persistence, volatility, and survival of high growth firms

In most developed countries, high growth firms (HGFs) are disproportionately responsible for net job creation, yet there is little information about how well such firms sustain their performance over time. Using GMM on a panel of 79,200 Romanian SMEs from 2000 to 2012, this paper evaluates the extent to which HGFs register stable and sustained growth over time, accounting for a variety of definitions for “high growth” that have been used in academic and policy literatures. Our results indicate that high growth SMEs are unable to maintain high growth rates for long, but do register lower volatility in growth rates and higher chances of survival. Identification of HGFs and results regarding growth volatility and persistence vary significantly with the specific definition of “high growth” used, as well as with the specific variable used to measure growth (e.g., revenue, employees, profit, productivity). Our findings have direct implications for growth policies and programs that depend on identifying HGFs.

Innovation indicators in the context of Romanian SMEs: A research agenda

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the theoretical connection between key terms such as innovation indicators and entrepreneurship, highlighting the main trends of innovative activities and practices in the context of Romanian small and medium enterprises. Innovation management has gained an increased interest nowadays since it provides tools for creating competitive advantage and economic growth for enterprises. In this sense, at global and European Union level, innovation indicators have been identified in order to measure the efficiency of innovation. In addition, innovation and entrepreneurship have been connected by scholars, since their application provides business opportunities. Starting from the Europe 2020 Strategy that has innovation as a pillar for reaching economic growth, the present study provides a descriptive analysis of the Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2019 report, followed by a comparative analysis of the European Innovation Scoreboard reports published in the last 5 years. The present paper contributes to the existing knowledge regarding the actual application of innovation indicators in Romanian SMEs. The paper provides an answer to the research questions, which focus on depicting what are the exact innovation indicators that characterize the activities of Romanian SME and what are the trends and weaknesses in the actual business environment in terms of innovative endeavors. This paper provides some recommendations in terms of improvement of innovative efforts for the enterprises that operate in the Romanian market.

Promoting Innovation and Creativity: The Case of Human Factor in Romanian SMEs

Innovation has become the central engine of economic well-being, competitiveness, employment and long-term income growth for most economies. As the European Union Innovation Scoreboard shows, Romania is part of the modest innovators group. The situation of innovation in Romania has worsened so much that since 2015 it occupies the last place in the EU. The deterioration of the innovation condition in Romania is confirmed by The Global Competitiveness Report. There is a direct link between state measures and performance in innovation, as shown by the "Contributors and Detractors: Ranking Countries’ Impact on Global Innovation” report. The process of innovation itself involves a concerted effort of economic agents and the state, the latter having the role of facilitating, consolidating and supporting innovative activities. The innovative potential of an enterprise can be strengthened by the human factor through the use of creative methods and techniques.

Strategy: A Big Challenge for a Small Business. Evidences from North-East Romanian SMEs

Strategy: A Big Challenge for a Small Business. Evidences from North-East Romanian SMEs

DETERMINANTS OF CLOUD COMPUTING ADOPTION BY ROMANIAN SMES IN THE DIGITAL ECONOMY

The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of Cloud Computing adoption within Romanian Small and Medium sized Enterprises in the digital age. Most of the scientific papers related to this topic examine the general outlook of cloud computing implementation in Romania and focus on the use of the afore-mentioned technologies by large scale companies. In order to identify the factors that have an influence over the choice of Romanian SMEs to adopt cloud computing technology, a conceptual model has been set forth. The model’s dependent variable is the choice of the company’s management to implement cloud computing technologies. Five different independent types of variable structures which have an effect on the adoption of cloud computing within SMEs were identified. The five categories of variables are competition & government, ICT providers & firm departments, employee, manager and technological factors. Each of these categories of determinants encompasses at their turn two or more constructs. An online survey tested the model based on the responses of managers and directors from 198 Romanian SMEs from the cities of Bucharest and Cluj. The validity of the model was performed by completing factor analysis and reliability tests of the data; a logistic regression analysis was deployed to test the research hypotheses. The results emphasized that the managers’ know-how on cloud computing and the perceived costs of implementing the technology represent the main components influencing the spreading of cloud computing among Romanian SMEs. This study makes a valuable contribution to the academic environment but to businesses as well. The model can be used to examine the implementation of different innovative applications. Companies which offer cloud computing services could take advantage of the outcomes of this study to expand the degree of cloud service introduction among SMEs.