Mariana Nicolae

Regional differences in entrepreneurial perceptions and implications for the Romanian competitiveness policy

Abstract Understanding entrepreneurship as being spatially rooted transforms it in a regional and national competitiveness factor. Despite the increasing importance of the territorial dimension in supporting economic growth at policy and declarative levels, in practice, in Romania, the territorial structure and spatial organization of the economy contributes little to the national value added. In this context, we study regional differences in entrepreneurial initiative and perception and their possible impact on the national competitiveness strategy. We use primary data collected in three Romanian regions (Centre, North-East, Bucureşti-Ilfov) and conduct a statistical analysis of the data. The results indicate different comparative regional profiles. The regional differences in the intentions, motivations, barriers and limitation for entrepreneurship confirm the theoretical view that personal motivations of becoming an entrepreneur are determined by environmental conditions. We conclude that the regional differences should be taken into account in the elaboration of the competitiveness policy, corroborated with the results of other similar studies.

Economics education from scratch: a view from post-communist Romania

Two decades elapsed since economics had to replace Marxist political economy and be taught from scratch. This paper gives an account of the consequences and implications of this process in career advancement, research output, and teaching experiences for the economics community in Romania. Our study also parallels the proposed reforms with the international experience in the field of evaluating academic and research performance.

Leadership in Higher Education – coping with AI and the turbulence of our times

Abstract Today’s world is clearly fractured whether we are looking at it through economic, political, cultural or educational lenses. This is in no way something new. The world has always been in this state, but the speed with which it reacted to real or perceived threats and tried to change accordingly was barely perceivable and, therefore, easier to adopt and adapt to. Today those changes happen with incredible speed and our reactions to them may not be informed or educated and are usually taken by leaders who are, at best, controversial and at worst obviously partial to their own, petty interests against the greater public good they vowed to serve. What can higher education do in such a world? Artificial intelligence (AI) is making huge progress and, although education at all levels is lagging behind in meaningfully adopting AI and working with it, the educational system is expected to react to a world divided by the fear of AI using big data, claiming jobs, and ushering in the era of loss of human supremacy or by the glorification of AI which is only a tool, fast developing indeed, but permanently controlled by human intelligence. Even if that human intelligence is concentrated into fewer and fewer human decision makers thus contributing to the already huge gap of inequality existing in today’s world. The present paper will explore issues related to the way in which the leadership of higher education chooses to handle today’s challenges and will use the home university of the authors to illustrate what happens in Romanian universities. The discussion will be informed by the authors’ own experience in the higher education system as well as by an analysis of various discourses and narratives belonging to different stakeholders, discussing those issues in various inter/national media. The paper will offer some recommendations.

Spiritual Leadership: Implications for Managerial Action

The study explores the main practical implications for decision-making and managerial action in organizations that adopted spiritual leadership or that are willing to follow such an approach. Spiritual leadership is a relatively innovative concept, defined as that type of leadership that aims to “create vision and value congruence across the individual, empowered team, and organization levels and, ultimately, foster higher levels of both organizational commitment and productivity” (The Leadership Quarterly 16:835–863). Our study will first review the theoretical contributions to the spiritual leadership research agenda and then will assess its development and limitations. The critical evaluation of the specialized literature will contribute to the underlining of the main implications in terms of managerial behavior; will highlight the criteria spiritual leaders use for decision-making; and, more generally, will explore how the adoption of a spiritual leadership approach influences managerial action in organizations.