View On Strategic Management Literature From Romania

This study focuses on analyzing the Romanian works on strategic management – a specific field of management theory. The literature to be analyzed is referred to the Romanian environment due to the national authors writing in Romanian on the one hand, and to the source of diffusion involving the products which were developed on the other. This study evaluates the strategic management theory representation and reflection in the works issued in Romania by Romanian authors during the last two decades. Such an assessment is valuable for the evaluation of the development level related to a rather novel field of to the socio-economic area..The evaluation is also useful in order to devise curricula for the faculties providing training programs related to business and institution management. The study schema taken into account is discussed by reviewing similar examples selected from the foreign literature. The works to be analyzed were selected taking into account the interest triggered by the prestige of the quoted authors and by the analysis schemes they used. The approaches related to a specific segment of management are compared to the ones dealing with the field as a whole. “The form oriented references” of the study are compared with the practice developed in the countries considered as sources for the management theory. The research has mostly a descriptive character with a longitudinal approach focused on the last two decades. The qualitative aspects prevail, even if an amount of quantitative references are also taken into account. The quantitative approach attempts to provide a wider image where certain approximations are used in order to build a basis of reference. With no intention to develop case studies, the examples were preferred to doubtful quantitative determinations related to the relevance of representation, which could have concealed the essential state of facts. The secondary sources used were selected according to the level of visibility. The results offer a general view, as a “snapshot,” of the main set of characteristics related to the significant issues of strategic management published in Romanian by Romanian authors. Elements related to amount and contents are taken into account and deductive qualitative evaluations are developed on the quality of the issues. The limits of the study are predetermined by selecting an optimistic approach, a fact that implies the de facto formation of a favorable sample consisting of elements to be researched. This study represents a point of entry for a “who’s who” type discussion on the current strategic management theory in Romania. Its exploratory character allows the planning of a higher scale research in order to devise a more reliable inventory of the products related to the field and to measure the real impact of the knowledge diffused by these works, books and articles. By choosing this topic, the author attempted to draw attention to the necessity of researching on the “production” of theory authors involved in a certain field – in this instance the strategic management – in order to decide if the research framework of the associated practice has a reliable basis. Even if structured in a rather elliptical style, the conclusions suggest that in the Romanian field of theory there is still a wide array of unbeaten paths.