WAYS OF IMPROVING THE UNIVERSITY ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE BY MOTIVATION PROGRAMS AND ACTIONS FOR STUDENTS

An effective university culture can lead to successful governance through trust between managers and employees. At the same time, a succesful university culture teaches and exhibits appropriate behavior, motivates individuals, and governs information processing; these components of culture can shape university internal relations and values.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new concept of university organizational culture at Transilvania University of Brasov based on actions for student motivation and involvement in the university life and their career development (e.g. student internal competition, involving students in solving administrative problems, early cooperation between students and companies).

The new management program assumed by the Rector of Transilvania University of Brasov and the executive board (vice-rectors and deans) endeavours to reconsider the students’ potential and their creativity. In this context, the university management launched a series of internal project competitions, under a program called Ten from twenty thousands (ten ideas from twenty thousands students). Every year, based on the university development priorities, ten different project competitions are launched for students, and the best proposals/solutions provided by students are implemented whilst the proposers are awarded. Such competitions have just started in spring 2012 and included the development of a new university website, solutions for loss reduction, redesigning and rebuilding of the university restaurant etc. The first competitions revealed a strong student implication as well as their huge potential to contribute to the development of the university. At the same time, an incresing student interest to participate in such competitions has been noticed.

In order to encourage the cooperation between students and companies and to support their future career development two initiatives started to be implemented recently: (a) participation of companies in the annual student scientific conferences in order to find joint solutions for cooperation in the final diploma project, and (b) organisation of an annual conference called The graduates in front of companies, where each graduating student of the BSc or MSc programs, who want to participate, has the possibility to present in front of interested company representatives his or her diploma or disertation project. Both initiatives proved to be very attractive both for companies and students.