SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY VALUES: A CROSS COUNTRY COMPARISON

This empirical study aims at finding out how similar and/or different are the future Romanian and Slovenian managers in assessing the importance of organization's social responsibility values. The assumption of the research is that most of most of students in engineering and business will hold middle management position in the near future. The sample consists of 727 undergraduate and graduate students' levels from Romania and Slovenia, two former socialist countries. The data has been collected between 2008 and 2009 in the framework of GLOBE student project , using a section of GLOBE III questionnaire, about the importance of CSR related values in critical decisions. The findings concern the similarities and significant differences between: 1) whole Romanian and Slovenian samples; 2) Romanian and Slovenian students in engineering; 3) Romanian and Slovenian students in business. Our findings revealed a trend toward convergence in the importance given to decision's effect on contribution to the economic welfare of the nation and local community, as well as on employees' professional growth and development and on environment. The biggest difference between the groups concerns the decisions' effect on firm profitability (the Romanians considering this value as more important in critical decisions than the Slovenians). The students in engineering proved to be a more homogeneous group, showing convergence in assessing the importance of eight out of fifteen social responsibility values. The biggest difference concerns the decisions' effect on firm profitability (Romanians consider it as having higher importance in critical decisions than the Slovenians). Comparison of students in business revealed convergence in assessing the importance of employees' professional growth and development and decision's effect on environment. The biggest positive difference concerns the same value of decisions' effect on firm profitability. The Romanians are well behind Slovenians in realizing the importance of decisions' effect on relationships with important partners of the organization, ethical considerations and decision's effect on long term competitive ability of the organization.Social responsibility, Romania, Slovenia, students

HOW FUTURE MANAGERS VIEW SOCIETAL CULTURE: A CROSS-COUNTRY COMPARISON

Our study aims at enriching the existing literature about the prospective managers view of an ideal societal value system and the existing cultural practices in their society. The findings about the students' perception on cultural practices and their expectations about societal culture are helpful in imagining the societal culture in its dynamics. The research sample consists of 727 students in business and engineering on undergraduate and graduate levels from Romania and Slovenia. The reason we have chosen to compare Romanian sample with the cultural profile of the "average" future manager from Slovenia is the scientific curiosity of finding out if there are signs of cultural convergence of Romania with a previous communist country, and an older member of European Union. In doing so, our study will hopefully broaden the body of knowledge about the cultural convergence (or divergence?) between the former socialist countries joining European Union. The theoretical and methodological foundation is rooted in GLOBE international research project. Our findings revealed that at practices level,Romanians perceive significant higher Power Distance and significant lower mean value for Uncertainty Avoidance. At the expectations level, the Romanians and Slovenians are very similar in the desire concerning their societies orientation toward In group/Family Collectivism, Assertiveness and Performance Orientation, and record significant differenced in all the other societal values. The fact that for all the cultural expectations the future managers assign different mean values than for the correspondent practices make us expect that they will act to change their cultural environments. Still, the cultural orientation of Romanian future middle managers will differ in many regards from the Slovenian sample averages.societal culture, cultural practice, cultural value, Romania, Slovenia

HOW FUTURE MANAGERS VIEW SOCIETAL CULTURE: A CROSS-COUNTRY COMPARISON

Our study aims at enriching the existing literature about the prospective managers view of an ideal societal value system and the existing cultural practices in their society. The findings about the students' perception on cultural practices and their expectations about societal culture are helpful in imagining the societal culture in its dynamics. The research sample consists of 727 students in business and engineering on undergraduate and graduate levels from Romania and Slovenia. The reason we have chosen to compare Romanian sample with the cultural profile of the "average" future manager from Slovenia is the scientific curiosity of finding out if there are signs of cultural convergence of Romania with a previous communist country, and an older member of European Union. In doing so, our study will hopefully broaden the body of knowledge about the cultural convergence (or divergence?) between the former socialist countries joining European Union. The theoretical and methodological foundation is rooted in GLOBE international research project. Our findings revealed that at practices level,Romanians perceive significant higher Power Distance and significant lower mean value for Uncertainty Avoidance. At the expectations level, the Romanians and Slovenians are very similar in the desire concerning their societies orientation toward In group/Family Collectivism, Assertiveness and Performance Orientation, and record significant differenced in all the other societal values. The fact that for all the cultural expectations the future managers assign different mean values than for the correspondent practices make us expect that they will act to change their cultural environments. Still, the cultural orientation of Romanian future middle managers will differ in many regards from the Slovenian sample averages

PROSPECTIVE LEADERS' VIEW ON ROMANIAN SOCIETAL CULTURE

This study deals with Romanian prospective leaders’ perceptions and expectations concerning the societal culture. It is a part of a European research project, GLOBE Students, dealing with the interrelations between societal culture and leadership. The basic theoretical constructs and methodological framework of investigation are those developed by GLOBE international research project. In adapting our research to student population peculiarities, GLOBE Beta questionnaire was altered through adding new items (scales). The sample consists in 429 students in business/economics and engineering, belonging to three Romanian universities. The findings show that in student’s opinion there are significant differences between societal culture practices and values (expectations) on all nine cultural dimensions in GLOBE model

SOCIETAL CULTURE: A COMPARISON OF ROMANIAN, AUSTRIAN AND GERMAN STUDENTS PERSPECTIVE

Our study compares the students’ view on the existing cultural practices with their ideal societal value system in compared societies. For the purpose of this investigation, Austria and Germany were selected to represent Central European values since they are seen as a ‘bridge’ between Eastern and Western European societal values. The research findings are helpful in identifying signs of cultural convergence of Romanian societal culture with Central European values. In doing so, our study will hopefully broaden the body of knowledge about the cultural harmonization between newer and older members of European Union. As seen in the literature review section, such studies started only a few years ago. Comparison of Romanian, Austrian and German students’ perspective on societal culture is performed for the first time by the authors of this study. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\r\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\nThe underlying assumption of the study is that the future middle managers will mostly come from the graduates of business and engineering fields of study. The research sample consists of 1086 undergraduate and graduate students. The main research question concerns the differences between the Romanian, Austrian and German students’ view on societal culture. The theoretical and methodological foundation of the study is rooted in GLOBE international research project. Our findings revealed significant differences between perceptions of actual practices and expectations between the compared groups.\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\r\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

PROSPECTIVE ROMANIAN LEADERS' VIEW ON LEADERSHIP DIMENSIONS

This study deals with Romanian prospective leaders' view on outstanding leadership dimensions (styles). It is a part of a European research project, GLOBE Students, dealing with the interrelations between societal culture and leadership. The basic theoretical constructs and methodological framework of investigation are those developed by GLOBE international research project. The sample consists in 429 students in business/economics and engineering, belonging to three Romanian universities. The findings show that the most preferred leadership styles are team oriented and charismatic (value based). Only a few leadership styles seem to have weak, but statistically significant correlations against a sig. = 0.50 probability threshold with important socialization agents for the students

Organisational culture dimensions in Romanian finance industry

As part of the GLOBE project, this paper explores the societal and the organizational culture of the Romanian finance industry as reflected by middle managers’ opinion. The two culture levels are compared across nine cultural dimensions. The differences between the cultural manifestations (practices and values) are analyzed through comparing the middle managers’ answers to “what is” and “what should be” type questions at organizational and societal levels. The findings show some significant differences for the majority of the cultural dimensions examined both between culture levels (organizational versus societal) and culture manifestations (practices versus values).cultural dimensions, cultural values, cultural practices