Profilul antreprenorului roman

Profilul antreprenorului roman

The European Commission defines Entrepreneurship as the mind set and process needed to create and develop economic activity by blending risk-taking, creativity and/or innovation with sound management, within a new or an existing organisation[1].

SMEs and start-up companies are the backbone of the Romanian economy, providing jobs for millions of citizens and are the basis for economic innovation. Structural changes lived by Romania and the rest of the world in the last years, make entrepreneurship even a more relevant factor of socio-economic progress. The Internal Market, accessible after the accession of Romania to the European Union, facilitates trading in a market of almost 500 million consumers. Globalisation increased competitive pressure on manufacturing firms, which led to increasing productivity by using technological inputs and innovation. Information and Communication Technologies gave rise to new markets which revolutionised production processes in many industries and led to growth of the service sector. All these changes generate opportunities for new entrepreneurial initiative, particularly in the area of services. Additionally, the reduced costs of transmitting knowledge across space makes inputs by external providers relatively cheaper and helps Romanian entrepreneurs to operate on a more European or worldwide scale. For all these reasons, entrepreneurship should play an essential role to foster Romanian economic recovery and employment growth in the recent global crisis (See Box 4.1.a).

However, entrepreneurial culture in Romania is not as favourable[2] as in some other areas. For instance, Romanian citizens are less inclined to become entrepreneurs, and more risk-averse than their American counterparts. Romanian youths strongly prefer employment in a large corporation, while Americans aspire to self-employment. Once a new company has been created, it also tends to grow at a slower rate than in the US.

In this framework, government analysts and policymakers need to achieve a deep understanding of the entrepreneurial phenomenon in Romania, in order to promote the creation of fast growing dynamic enterprises capable of generating added value and economic growth. The design and monitoring of such policies require indicator systems on the evolution of entrepreneurship in the country (See box 4.1.b).

Creation of enterprises in Romania

During 2000-2008, new enterprises have been launched at an increasing rate (excepting a reduction in 2006) as can be appreciated in the following graph:

Graph 4.1.a. Number of new enterprises created per year

Source: NIS (The profile of Romanian entrepreneurs, 2010)

The trend of enterprise creation in Romania is different to the general international trend. The number of new enterprises exhibits a significant decrease in 2008 or earlier in most of the European and OECD countries[5], due to the recent economic and financial crisis, However, these reduction has not taken place in Romania.

To create a new company in Romania, entrepreneurs need manage six different procedures with an average duration of 10 days[6] (see table 4.1.a). The costs of the procedures to launch the start up are 2.6% of income per capita in Romania and the amount that the entrepreneur needs to deposit in a bank or with a notary to complete the registration is 0.9% of income per capita. Based on these indices, Romania is ranked in 2011 in place 44 of 183 world economies. The difficulties to create new companies, in relation with other countries, have increased in the last year (Romania was ranked in place 41 in 2010). Start up procedure is easier in other 12 EU member states than in Romania (see Table 4.1.B).

Table 4.1.a. Procedures to start a new business in Romania (June 1, 2010)

Source: WB and IFC (Doing Business 2011)

Table 4.1.B. Difficulties to create a company in the other EU member states[7] according to WB-IFC index (June 1, 2010)

Source: WB and IFC (Doing Business 2011)

Socio-economic profile of Romanian entrepreneurs

The profile of Romanian entrepreneurs has been improving since 1995 in terms of equality between women and men, education level and technical qualification and experience of the entrepreneur. Specifically:

• From a gender perspective, almost two thirds (63.4%) of the entrepreneurs starting up their business in 2008 are men. Being still to high, the inequality between percentages of women and men entrepreneurs are slowly reducing in Romania. For instance, in 1995 a 70.9% of the entrepreneurs were male (7.5% more than in 2008).

Graph 4.1.b: Distribution of new active enterprises created by sex of the founder / manager (%) from 1995 to 2008.

Source: NIS (The profile of Romanian entrepreneurs, 2010) . Trends obtained by own calculation.

• Entrepreneurs are in general young people, mainly in their thirties. Up to 61.4% of the new active companies have been created by entrepreneurs younger than 40 years.

Graph 4.1.c: Distribution of new active enterprises created by age of the founder / manager (%) from 1995 to 2008.

Source: NIS (The profile of Romanian entrepreneurs, 2010) .

• As regards education level, 53.9% of the entrepreneurs have completed high school or university, 1.7% of them having finished only primary education. (figure 4.1.c).

The percentage of entrepreneurs with high school and university education exhibits an increasing trend since 1995. As a result of such a trend, two important issues should be highlighted:

o      High Schools and also Universities have become the education centres where most of the entrepreneurs are trained. However, entrepreneurs who attended University do not exhibit higher managerial skills[8] than those without university education. For instance, the use of formal planning techniques in their start-ups or the design of explicit career plans for their employees does not increase with entrepreneur's education level. Hence, the importance and orientation of curricular contents devoted to the development of the entrepreneurial culture and skills needs to be improved in high education, no matter the field of knowledge (See Box 4.1.c).

o      The improvement in entrepreneurs' education provides a chance to develop dynamic start-ups. Universities, specifically those with a technical and scientific orientation, should also play a key role at this point supporting the developing and commercializing of spinning off innovative technologies.

Graph 4.1.d: Distribution of newly created active enterprises by education level of the founder/manager (%).

Source: NIS (The profile of Romanian entrepreneurs, 20010) Trends obtained by own calculation

Technical qualification of Romanian entrepreneurs have also improved in the last years, the percentage unqualified workers before starting their own business decreasing until to one-third in 2008 from 2-thirds in 1995. However, the level of managerial experience of the founders/managers of enterprises is still very low: only 2.4% of the start ups in 2008 were launched by entrepreneurs with previous experience in managerial positions. This lack of managerial experience needs to be substituted by training programmes or, since most of Romanian entrepreneurs has a High School or University education, by the inclusion of managerial-oriented subjects in technical and scientific universities.

Graph 4.1.e: Distribution of the newly created active enterprises by previous socio-professional category of the founder/manager (%).

Source: NIS (The profile of Romanian entrepreneurs, 2010) Trends obtained by own calculation

Main problems faced by entrepreneurs

The impact of the recent economic and financial crisis on the problems faced by the entrepreneurs is clearly shown in Graphs 4.1.f and 4.1.g.

As regards the supply side, the crisis has increased difficulties related to access to financial resources and credits: in 2008 the percentage of new companies facing a lack of resources has reached 77.1%, those with problems for being paid by their costumers on time 49.7% and those with limitation in their access to credits 47.2%. The gap between financial difficulties and other kind of problems related to the supply has become wider: less than of 20% the entrepreneurs faced problems related to lack of technology, access to qualified employees or lack of primary materials during 2008.

Financial constrains are then the most important supply-related difficulty for new enterprises. To cope with this problem should become a key axe in the design of policies to support and promote dynamic entrepreneurship in Romania during the next years.

Graph 4.1.f: Difficulties related to the supply (% of active companies)

Source: NIS (The profile of Romanian entrepreneurs, 2010)

The impact of the crisis on demand-related difficulties is also clear. Due to the economic and financial crisis, the lack of economic resources of their potential clients (70%) has become the most important difficulty in 2008, although is importance is very similar to that of the high intensity of market competition (69%). The prevalence of difficulties associated to low awareness of the new company in the market (50%) and the marketing inabilities of the entrepreneur (30%) are lower in 2008 than in pre-crisis years.

Graph 4.1.g: Difficulties related to the demand (% of new active companies)

Source: NIS (The profile of Romanian entrepreneurs, 2010)

This findings highlights that the crisis has modified entrepreneurs' perception on the main difficulties for business development. Responsible of start ups in 2008 become more worried about the financial difficulties faced by the company and its customers and less concerned of less urgent problems such us the management of company's market positioning (awareness, marketing abilities, etc.) or access to new technologies. This fact may have a negative impact during next years, since these second group of issues plays a key role in chance of the company to survive and become dynamic.

Programe cu finantare de la bugetul de stat in sprijinul dezvoltarii culturii antreprenoriale

Dezvoltarea conceptului de cultura antreprenoriala a inceput sa se dezvolte in Europa in contextul implementarii Strategiei de la Lisabona privind cresterea si locurile de munca, subliniandu-se astfel necesitatea unui climat antreprenorial pozitiv si a unor conditii care sa faciliteze incurajarea spiritului antreprenorial. Spiritul antreprenorial se refera la capacitatea unei persoane de a-si pune ideile in practica; aceasta implica inovare, creativitate si asumarea unor riscuri, precum si capacitatea de a planifica si de a gestiona proiecte pentru realizarea unor obiective.

Importanta acordata antreprenoriatului la nivel european, ca element cheie in procesul de dezvoltare armonioasa a intregului teritoriu al Uniunii, a determinat includerea acestui concept in cadrul strategiilor promovate de catre Guvernele statelor membre in domeniul educatiei. Astfel, in Romania, dezvoltarea culturii antreprenoriale a fost introdusa pe lista obiectivelor principale ale "Strategiei dezvoltarii invatamantului preuniversitar 2001-2004" si, ulterior, in Strategia Invatamantului superior romanesc 2002-2010". Aceasta din urma subliniaza necesitatea si importanta promovarii conceptului de universitate antreprenoriala si a initiativei antreprenoriale.

In acelasi context, au fost initiate si o serie de programe cu finantare de la bugetul de stat, in scopul dezvoltarii culturii antreprenoriale, si anume:

- Programul national multianual pe perioada 2005-2012 pentru dezvoltarea culturii antreprenoriale in randul femeilor manager din sectorul intreprinderilor mici si mijlocii, al carui obiectiv it constituie promovarea unui sistem de informare si de instruiré care sa faciliteze mobilitatea femeilor pe piata fortei de munca si dezvoltarea aptitudinilor antreprenoriale ale acestora in scopul implicarii lor in structuri economice private, in contextul problemelor legate de mentinerea echilibrului dintre obligatiile familiale si cele profesionale si al prejudecatilor existente la nivel local.

- Programul pentru dezvoltarea abilititilor antreprenoriale in randul tinerilor si facilitarea accesului acestora la finantare START(demarat in 2004), prin care se urmareste stimularea infiintarii de noi microintreprinderi, imbunatatirea performantelor economice ale celor existente, cresterea potentialului de accesare a surselor de finantare si dezvoltarea aptitudinilor antreprenoriale ale tinerilor in scopul implicarii acestora in structuri economice private.

La aceste programe finantate din bugetul de stat, se adauga schemele de finantare din fondurile structurale si de coeziune, si anume: DMI Dezvoltarea Durabila a Antreprenoriatului - POSCCE si DMI Promovarea culturii antreprenoriale - POSDRU[11].