PhD research regarding entrepreneurship in the South-East region of Romania

A recent research activity conducted over 117 medium-sized enterprises from the South – East region of Romania has revealed the following:

• The majority of the employees of the companies that were interviewed do not participate in training courses related to project management and personal development. However, company administrators consider that such courses are useful to increase competitiveness in times of economic and financial crises.
• Personnel under 40 years of age suffer from a lack of professional training and dedication to job requirements.
• Companies have expressed an interest in accessing European Union funding. However, they do not have complete information that would allow them to start a project and finalize it. This lack of information is mainly due to lack of access to specialists who would write the projects and submit them. The majority of entrepreneurs consider they can not write the projects themselves but on the other hand, they are not aware of consulting companies or other organizations that could help them. Their main information source is the mass-media.

As a result, companies have adjusted to the effects of the economic crisis, diminishing their activity and laying off people, decreasing the running expenses and stopping investing in their development. These measures have generated increased social unrest.

This report has been done with Cristi Dumitru, Communication Manager at Lower Danube University of Galati, Romania.