Abstract:

This paper aims to demonstrate the urgent need of intensifying the transfer of managerial knowledge from Romanian universities to small and medium sized enterprises, so that they will not be captured by international corporations.

We have firstly presented the results of a bibliographical research regarding the most important weakness of the European small and medium sized enterprises, which is also the most important weakness of Romanian enterprises: the availability of skilled staff or experienced managers. This research has proved that the transfer of managerial knowledge from universities to Romanian small and medium sized enterprises is precarious. This fact compromises not only their growth and performances, but also their existence in the extremely turbulent current business environment. It is therefore an important problem facing these enterprises.

In order to discover the main causes of this problem, we have secondly made a focus group with managers in small and medium sized enterprises from Sibiu County, Romania. We have presented finally a list with the most important causes of precarious managerial knowledge transfer from universities to small and medium sized enterprises. But the results of the focus group have also opened new perspectives on how to solve the problem studied, the participants providing both general solutions and customized solutions in different areas of activity. The most important proposals were the initiation by universities of post-graduate courses for managers, a greater emphasis on managerial disciplines in technical faculties and new teaching methods for these subjects.

Keywords:

Universities, enterprises, transfer, managerial knowledge.