Browsing: 2016

Introduction. Leadership has become a major topic in various domains such as sociology, political science, psychology, history, management or business for several decades and has spawned a huge number of empirical and conceptual researches. Today’s challenging and turbulent times require more than ever authentic and strong leaders both at the micro and macro level.

Aim of the study. The aims of the paper are to briefly define the concepts of leadership and leader, and to present the case of Carlos Ghosn, the chairman and chief executive officer of the Renault-Nissan Alliance. Since the beginning of his professional career, Ghosn has proved to be a leader par excellence. Our research is based on a literature review.
Keywords: leader, leadership, Carlos Ghosn, Renault-Nissan Alliance
JEL Classification: M10

Introduction. Current leadership is different from the one belonging to the last century’s society, and in the future, it will certainly be different from today. The difference is not one that relates to the philosophy and physiognomy of shape, but one that is structured on the philosophy of science dynamism and the complexity of social, economic, financial, informational and cognitive dynamics.

Aim of the study. This paper aims to highlight that in an open society, in which general management and even educational management move significantly towards complexity, leadership too will embody forms and formulas that take o leader out of traditional form of leader-hero, virile and good at everything, loved and followed, in favor of a teammate leader, a node network leader, one who will play a creative, innovative and distributive role, a cognitive and universal leader. This change of philosophy and physiognomy towards the creation of creation and innovation, towards knowing, encouraging and protecting those that step outside their limits, is what I consider as one of the fundamental characteristics of the leadership of the century that we just stepped into.
Keywords: leader, leadership; management; present, future

Introduction. Talent management could be defined currently as ,,all the systems and processes that enable a company to attract, develop and retain employees with highly qualified” but given different interpretations we observe that ,,talent management” has a different meaning for each company. Some organizations aim to manage talent throughout the company, while others are just managing employees with high potential.

Aim of the study. This paper aims to highlight that talent management is applied differently from one organization to another depending on the type and stage of development where they are. Approaches to this subject differ so greatly from one company to another, that a process for some is “nice to have”, and for others it is a process having a significant impact in business. Yet top companies have created worldwide selection networks through which talented peopleare recruited to be hired within such (Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, etc.). The budgets meant for identifying people with high potential are especially generous and therefore these companies have long-term collaboration with universities in various countries. It is true that talented people have a few areas in wich they excel and companies need to support them to develop these skills/competencies but at the same time, they have to ,,cultivate’’ also their social skills in order to integrate into organization and thus to help them but also the organization to develop harmoniously and be permanently competitive.
Keywords: Talent, organization
JEL Classification: M11, M12, M14, M54

Introduction. Leadership is often considered a desired way of managing things. It reveals specific personal characteristics through which leaders involve people into processes. Coaching has to do with a specific way of interaction between a coaching manager and the people receiving the benefit of it. In fact, a coach behaves like a proper leader and a coached individual like a follower. At the same time, leadership is different from coaching.

Aim of the study. Main objectives of this paper are the following: to explain the leadership process in relationship with coaching, to provide a set of measures to develop life coaching from leadership way of thinking and to identify the young generation’s perception on coaching. The study reveals similarities between leadership and coaching, as well as differences and contributes to a better understanding of these concepts, based on a literature review. The research based on a questionnaire explains the effects of leadership on coaching process based on the students’ perceptions. Therefore, the paper includes a case study for higher education sector.
Keywords: leadership, life coaching, personal development, life model, student-professor relationship

Introduction. The impact of leadership on economic welfare is therefore perceived from a double perspective: on one hand, company true leaders, exerting positive influences on the organisations they lead by providing jobs and by increasing revenues to the sate budget and, on the other hand, national true leaders, holding the mechanisms for stimulating, by their actions, both consumption and investment and, thus, for sustaining a sound economic growth.

Aim of the study. This paper has as main purpose to reveal, via a series of examples taken from real life, the dependence of economic welfare on good leadership, irrespective on the context of manifestation of the latter. Be they company leaders, therefore leaders acting at microeconomic level, or national leaders, herein embodied by governmental leaders, monetary authority leaders or presidential leaders, making decisions at macroeconomic level, true leadership is a continuous source of well being for any economy, as it represents the coagulation of miscellaneous economic touch constructive ideas and facts.
Keywords: company leaders, national leaders, economic welfare, microeconomic context, macroeconomic approach
JEL Classification: I31, O11, O12, M10, H20

Introduction. Research on stereotypes and stereotyping (Acker, 1990; Bergeron, Block & Echtenkamp, 2006; Carton and Rosette, 2011; Heilman, 2012) has so far shown that female leaders, in particular, can experience increased threat when attempting leadership positions in organizations.

Aim of the study. In this article, I explore the many ways in which stereotypes can undermine women performance in leadership and I discuss the factors that may help women become less vulnerable when faced with negative stereotyping. These factors are analyzed at various levels – the individual, the organizational and the situational/contextual levels. In the end, I suggest some ways designed to increase women’s belief in their leadership abilities as well as some interventions meant to determine organizations to become “aware” of their unconscious biases when evaluating women job positions and performance.
Keywords: negative stereotyping, stereotype threat, vulnerability, reactance, growth mindset
JEL Classification: M10, M20

Introduction. In the specialized literature the concept of self-directed learning is linked with personality traits, learning environment or learning process. In the literature we find that there is a correlation between self-directed learning and some personal traits from the “Big Five” model of personality, including extraversion, agreeableness, openness and conscientiousness. Self-directed learning is also influenced by the learning environment, which consists of teaching environment, learning environment, technology and administrative support. In a “traditional” learning environment, the teacher defines the learning goals, delivers the knowledge and evaluates the student’s ability to memorize the specific delivered knowledge. The student’s learning needs are rather seen homogeneous than heterogeneous. In a self-directed learning environment, the student takes the initiative, defines his own strategies of learning specific goals and evaluates his evolution in pursuing a certain learning goal. Seen as a process, the self-directed learning can be structured in certain steps like: defining the steps of learning from easy to difficult; establishing an own calendar of learning; evaluating his own learning progress etc.

Aim of the study. The aim of this article is to understand the concept of self-directed learning and to explore how to use self-directed learning in an educational environment, in order to find the appropriate qualitative and/or quantitative methodology to study the self-directed learning concept.
Keywords: self-directed learning, personality traits, communication skills, economic education, motivation.
JEL Classification: D83, I21, P36

Introduction. In today’s economic climate, in which great emphasis is laid on information, organizations get the highest value from their intellectual property rather than from their physical assets. Thus the organization is redefined and transformed gradually in the New Economy, which gives up on many of the old methods and approaches, seeking to integrate in the much more complex reality that occurs. The progress of an organization in a knowledge economy is directly proportional to its accumulated intellectual capital and knowledge, regardless of whether we relate to public or private sector.

Aim of the study. In this paper, we present a few aspects on the reflection of knowledge management and intellectual capital in the new economy.
Keywords: knowledge, organizational management, information, economic development, intellectual capital, knowledge management
JEL Classification: M19, O34, L25

Introduction. The entrepreneur is one of the main pawns of a competitive market economy, as he creates and develops organizations, thereby contributing decisively to the strengthening of the small and medium enterprises sector in contemporary economies.

Aim of the study. This paper aims to addresses important issues regarding the economic dimension of the entrepreneurial phenomenon, showing that entrepreneurship also manifests itself in other spheres of human activity such as education, social interaction, culture, politics, etc. The paper summarizes the main coordinates that define the conceptual framework of the entrepreneur and, at the same time, it exposes and analyzes some of the most important qualities that an entrepreneur should have in order to cope with the current business environment successfully.
Keywords: entrepreneur, SMEs, entrepreneurial phenomenon, entrepreneurial environment.
JEL Classification: L26, M10, M21, O10.

Introduction. The place and role of SOEs in a national economy was debated many years ago from the collapse of socialist economies when it came to the former communist countries to make a transition from the planned economy to an economy of free market, and even back in time to the early 80s, an example being the Teacher government in the UK. The subject remains as important nowadays for Romania, given that there are still many problems in connection with the responsibility of the state towards various fields of economic activity, the leadership and the involvement of public authorities and, not least, the economic performances brought by this type of enterprise.

Aim of the study. This paper try to make a review of the scientific literature in order to reveal significant researches in the domain, a short presentation of Romanians SOEs and their economic environment in 2014 and an analysis of the economic efficiency of public enterprises in Romania that focuses on the evolution of the 2012-2014 period of the number of public companies, of the major financial indicators, of the number of insolvencies, of the outstanding payments and of the state subsidies, as well as correlation between these results and the type of management and leadership applied in public enterprises, and that reflects the importance of this study for actual research in Romania.
Keywords: state owned enterprises, corporate governance, leadership, economic efficiency, financial indicators
JEL Classification: H54, H83, I32, I33