M&M by Ramona Cantaragiu
The journal Management & Marketing. Challenges for the Knowledge Society is inviting scholars to... more The journal Management & Marketing. Challenges for the Knowledge Society is inviting scholars to contribute to the third issue of 2015 by sending their submissions to office@managementmarketing.ro by 31st of July 2015.
Scientific Articles by Ramona Cantaragiu
Management & Marketing. Challenges for the Knowledge Society
The lack of governmental funding accompanied by an increase in the demand for social services hav... more The lack of governmental funding accompanied by an increase in the demand for social services have urged the universities to rethink their mission and their position on the market. The paper aims to investigate the dimensions of social impact of university entrepreneurship building on recent studies on the social mission of higher education. The existence of several dimensions in academia is tested by using a sample of twelve universities from Romania which rank first in terms of quality and academic results. A comparison is made between the ways in which the dimensions appear in the discourses of the universities to establish if the discourse is unaltered or variable. The examination reveals that the degree of social orientation differs among universities, some relying more on the activity of their student associations to promote social change, whereas others take the matters in their own hands and implement social projects based on European funding.
Management & Marketing. Challenges for the Knowledge Society, 2012
Without a unanimously accepted definition, the subject of academic entrepreneurship looks chaotic... more Without a unanimously accepted definition, the subject of academic entrepreneurship looks chaotic and the studies are hardly linked in order to provide a powerful theoretical framework, which would foster new researches. This paper intends to bring some light to the current debates relating to the ways in which academics can act entrepreneurially by surveying the literature and suggesting a definition, which allows it to be distinguished from other forms of entrepreneurship. The proposed definition is meant to cover all the angles by looking at value producing activities for external actors as the main basis for entrepreneurial academic initiatives. The definition is then used as the main pillar on which to build a distinct characterization of academic entrepreneurship and to disentangle this notion from the knot in which many entrepreneurship threads have been entangled: academic, commercial, social, scientific entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship.
Annals of the University of Oradea : Economic Science, 2013
Creative industries have recently gained attention from economists and policy makers as they are ... more Creative industries have recently gained attention from economists and policy makers as they are said to contribute in a significant way to the economic and technological development of knowledge societies. In Romania there has not been too much talk about the way in which these industries are inserted in the larger chain of industrial innovation, nor about the particularities of their innovation processes which could provide interesting insights for the more traditional industries that are in need of a creativity boost. This paper seeks to fill this gap by offering a process view of business innovation in an event management company, which we argue has many of the characteristics encountered in organizations belonging to creative industries. Through an in-depth case study based on diary entries and interviews we uncover the way in which innovation is understood in this service sector and how this understanding is translated into repeatable business processes. Based on the review of the literature concerned with innovativeness in creative industries we have decided upon four important research themes: people, products, places and policies. By people we refer, first of all, to the entrepreneur who was asked to reflexively answer questions related to passions/interests, formal and non-formal knowledge and social capital in order to assess the entrepreneurial capacity. Also included in this category are the clients of the company and the employees, which represent major players in the innovation process during different stages. Places are important because they are used in the definition of innovation: something new to someone somewhere, and also because they are regarded as a source of inspiration and a possible hindrance in the implementation of the desired event design. Products encompass the raw materials that are used in creating the flower arrangements and the general room décor as well as the technologies that stand behind them, while policies refer to national or local governmental mechanisms that seek to guide and fund innovation. These categories represent (f)actors that bring important contributions to the innovation process, while at the same time representing sources of major business risks for the event management company. The article follows the way in which these four items interact during the innovation process which was split into four stages: idea generation, negotiation of the idea, preparations for implementation and implementation of the idea. We conclude with the observation that innovation in event planning is human centered, the main referential system being based on the dyad company-client, a thing which has not been explicitly researched until now. Also we suggest that before trying to understand the way in which companies innovate, it is critical to undergo a thorough assessment of the entrepreneurs’ perception of business risks.
The International Journal of Management Science and Information Technology
The paper aims to investigate multiple meanings and conceptualizations of social entrepreneurship... more The paper aims to investigate multiple meanings and conceptualizations of social entrepreneurship in nonprofit, business and higher education sector. In the paper, the characteristics of university social entrepreneurship are investigated and the driving forces that determine the social entrepreneurial behavior of academic community members are discussed. Also, possible links between social responsibility and social entrepreneurship in higher education are addressed. The conceptual model that is proposed is based on a thorough review of the recent literature on academic entrepreneurship, social
responsibility, and social entrepreneurship. Also, secondary data in the form of official reports and other relevant documents available on universities’ and public and non-governmental organizations’ websites have been scrutinized. The examination reveals that, generally, universities experiment with different models of entrepreneurship, both business and social. Our findings also suggest that universities which are society-oriented and driven by a social mission are more likely to transform into social entrepreneurial institutions than the others. The paper argues that a university with an entrepreneurial culture embedded in all organizational processes and institutionalized at all managerial levels tends to be more concerned with addressing current society problems or unsolved market needs. Our findings need to be further tested empirically in future researches.
Quality in Higher Education Institutions, 2014
The customization of education becomes an obvious option for total quality management-oriented un... more The customization of education becomes an obvious option for total quality management-oriented universities, and, therefore, flexible and rapid reactions are expected from universities. In response, universities become more learning outcome - focused as well as more focused on the development of competencies recognized by employers. This paper aims at presenting an integrating perspective on the student-centred-learning concept as an accumulation of practices and learning experiences that determine an individual’s professional development and shape his personality. The research explores the best practices
achieved through education based on learning outcomes and student-centred economic faculties, within eight universities in Romania. The research was conducted by consulting the websites of the universities and faculties included in the analysis. The review standard for each faculty included: the type and content of the
programs of study offered in the three stages of education, organization and methods of disseminating research results, and services provided to students, including extracurricular activities. The results of the analysis confirm that the surveyed universities have dedicated and focused their efforts to reorganize the
curricula according to the requirements of the labor market, and increase the overall quality of education. However, student-centred learning practices are dissipated and quite restricted in the study programs. As a result of this analysis, the paper presents various measures that universities may take into consideration in order to ensure the spread of active learning practices in all educational programs.
Management & Marketing. Challenges for the Knowledge Society
This paper presents a descriptive, quantitative study devised in order to test hypothesis related... more This paper presents a descriptive, quantitative study devised in order to test hypothesis related to psychological traits of Romanian entrepreneurs and middle and top managers. The purpose of the present study is to describe the theoretical model proposed for the relationship between risk-taking and need for achievement in a business context and to test it against data gathered from Romanian business people. The sample consisted of 137 Romanian business people with managerial experience, who met at least one of the following sampling criteria: (1) founder or current owner of a Romanian company, (2) currently employed in a top management position, (3) currently employed on a position with managerial status. For testing the relation between variables we have used an independent sample test. The findings of the study reveal that it is very fruitful to consider the inclination towards risk taking as a determinant of the need for achievement, whereas most researches have considered the relationship to be the other way around.
Book Chapters by Ramona Cantaragiu
Trends in European Higher Education Convergence, Dima, A.M. (ed), pp. 370-391, 2014
Financing the higher education systems in European countries is a highly debated topic, and the m... more Financing the higher education systems in European countries is a highly debated topic, and the main issues are related to increasing the level of public funding, increasing the degree of autonomy in the management of the financial resources of universities, establishing direct correlations between results and the amount of public funding, and encouraging the diversification of funding sources, combined with the creation of partnerships with research institutes, enterprises, and regional authorities. This chapter presents a four-tiered research regarding the opinions of the Romanian academic community with respect to: (a) the priority measures used to improve convergence in Higher Education (HE) financing, (b) the most relevant indicators for assessing convergence in financing HE, (c) the barriers stopping or slowing down convergence financing in HE, and (d) the institutions responsible for taking measures and clearing any obstacles in financing the higher education system.
Strategic Role of Tertiary Education and Technologies for Sustainable Competitive Advantage, Ordóñez de Pablos, P. and Tennyson, R.D., pp. 103-119 , 2013
This chapter discusses the dimensions and characteristics of social entrepreneurship in universit... more This chapter discusses the dimensions and characteristics of social entrepreneurship in universities and its role in developing sustainable communities. It argues that by building on social responsibility practices and creating an identity of a society-oriented university, one which is driven by a social mission and humanistic values and a sense of moral commitment to its communities, higher education institutions are more likely to succeed on the global market characterized by an increasing competition and a high degree of internationalization. Therefore, by understanding the driving forces which determine the social entrepreneurial behavior of the academic community, universities will be more successful in driving social transformation and achieving innovation. While the view of social entrepreneurship in university put forward in this chapter is far from complete, we see it as an important first step to enhance our theoretical understanding of the phenomenon and facilitate future research.
Cross cultural training and teamwork in healthcare, Vasilache, S. (ed), pp. 34-56, 2013
The chapter discusses, comparatively, funding mechanisms for universities in Europe and advances ... more The chapter discusses, comparatively, funding mechanisms for universities in Europe and advances potential ways for their harmonization in the framework of their Bologna convergence. The findings of the research suggest that, while there is a European-level shift to performance-based funding and quantitative indicators tend to say that European HE funding systems are to a certain degree convergent, qualitative analysis indicates that the outcomes are still divergent and more efforts have to be put into really bringing these systems to a common ground.
Conference Presentations by Ramona Cantaragiu
Recently, the concept of entrepreneurship has been extended to include not only those perspective... more Recently, the concept of entrepreneurship has been extended to include not only those perspectives directly referring to activities of business formation, but also those perspectives which embrace other types of entrepreneurial initiatives manifested in the form of academic entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, political entrepreneurship, or knowledge entrepreneurship. The paper aims to investigate multiple conceptions and definitions of commercial entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship in academia using an extensive review of the literature on entrepreneurship, business management, and academic and social entrepreneurship. Furthermore, to get a clear understanding of the meanings and usefulness of the two concepts in universities, discussions with academic researchers and other faculty members from various Romanian universities have been successfully employed. In the paper, the dimensions of academic entrepreneurship are investigated, and the degree of interdependence and determination between the business side and the social perspective of an entrepreneurial university is explored. Additionally, the factors explaining social entrepreneurial behavior of universities are researched, and the similarities and differences between social and business entrepreneurship universities are inquired. The examination reveals that generally universities experiment different models of entrepreneurship, both business and social, which vary, for example, relative to the content of curriculum, people involved, or university ecosystem. Our findings need to be further tested empirically in future researches.
In this article we provide a critique of the social economy by focusing on the Romanian context. ... more In this article we provide a critique of the social economy by focusing on the Romanian context. As an impressive amount of resources is directed towards the social economy, proportional to the amount of hope that this will prove the savior of the vulnerable groups and the destroyer of social exclusions, it is high time we started asking questions such as: are we really going in the right direction? What happens when you change the rules of the economy to make it more social? Is there really a way to improve the market mechanism to solve social problems? The first area of discussion concerns the fundamental principles on which the social economy is built: promoting the social inclusion for vulnerable groups while at the same time discriminating and isolating them; then we discuss the principles of organization which are not homogeneously obeyed by all social economy actors and the avoidance of talks about entrepreneurial profits but its dependence on the profit’s very existence; and the last section presents the outcomes of the coercive legal framework which has failed to foster true social inclusion, and rather created mechanisms for fraud and profits. Concluding, we advocate the need to rethink the necessity of building new laws, especially laws which coerce social actors into certain behaviors rather than focusing on easing the access to certain social actors to the market economy.
The circulation of gifts in the family physician's office is a performative action that creates i... more The circulation of gifts in the family physician's office is a performative action that creates identities and a culture in which past and present values collude and collide. This study is based on three months of fieldwork in a family physician’s office in Romania. Regarding gifting, the Romanian legislation views these matters very strictly, prohibiting monetary and non-monetary payments irrespective if they are given before or after the medical act. Other neighboring countries, like Bulgaria, take a more relaxed view on this matter and they allow ex-post payments as signs of a patient’s gratitude (Balabanova and McKee, 2002). A part of these gifting activities is a remnant of the Communist past when gifts would open doors and provide access to services that should have been free. This is the culture that most resembles the assumptions that underlie any market exchange, but there is also a culture of care that inspires gifting as a form of reciprocating the attention given by the doctor to the patient. In this case the patient is responding to what it can be perceived as the initial gift, the gift of care, with an object that symbolizes a deeper connection. There are also some gifts that circulate deeper into the system mimicking the institution of a distributive justice, from those who have more to those who have less. The fact that these many nuances and strategies coexist makes the act of gifting harder to interpret for the outsider and the insider as well. As a result each act has to be viewed in its singularity, in the historical context of the relationship, the moment and the stated intentions for the future of the actors involved. The implications for those that perform macro-analyses of gifting between patients and doctors and those that make suggestions for future policies in this field are discussed.
Western medical sciences have been under the scrutiny of sociologists and anthropologists for a l... more Western medical sciences have been under the scrutiny of sociologists and anthropologists for a long time. Social scientists have provided valuable insights into the social aspects which help make some claims more scientific than others while at the same time showing that changing vocabularies could have a major social impact. Researchers like Emily Martin (2001) or Susan Sontag (1978) have focused on the scientific and popular language that is in use when talking and thinking about certain medicalized aspects of the human body such as bodily functions and diseases. By deconstructing the meaning of the words found in medical textbooks, everyday conversations and many other instances they have argued that science is built on strong metaphors which have become so entrenched in present reality that their metaphorical function passes unobserved allowing them to act like cognitive scripts with a great influence on what individual human beings experience when confronted with embodiment (Csordas, 1999). The paper is concerned with electrocardiography, a science which investigates the workings of the human heart in order to identify abnormalities in the cardiac rhythm. Starting with writings coming from the beginning of the 20th century when the practice was invented and perfected and ending with present day medical textbooks and scientific articles, the paper presents a periodization of the metaphoric language associated with electrocardiography and the human body. In the beginning the human heart was seen writing its own story through the electrocardiograph, but nowadays images talk about TV cameras registering from multiple angles the game that the body is playing. The principal argument is that medical science is based on metaphoric thinking that relate man and machine, the relation being biunique and that the analysis of its vocabulary can help discover how both body and machine are constructed in the social imaginary.
Creative industries have recently gained attention from economists and policy makers as they are ... more Creative industries have recently gained attention from economists and policy makers as they are said to contribute in a significant way to the economic and technological development of knowledge societies. In Romania there has not been too much talk about the way in which these industries are inserted in the larger chain of industrial innovation, nor about the particularities of their innovation processes which could provide interesting insights for the more traditional industries that are in need of a creativity boost. This paper seeks to fill this gap by offering a process view of business innovation in an event management company, which we argue has many of the characteristics encountered in organizations belonging to creative industries. Through an in-depth case study based on diary entries and interviews we uncover the way in which innovation is understood in this service sector and how this understanding is translated into repeatable business processes. Based on the review of the literature concerned with innovativeness in creative industries we have decided upon four important research themes: people, products, places and policies. By people we refer, first of all, to the entrepreneur who was asked to reflexively answer questions related to passions/interests, formal and non-formal knowledge and social capital in order to assess her entrepreneurial capacity for innovation. Also included in this category are the clients and the employees, which represent major players in the innovation process during different stages. Places are important because they are used in the definition of innovation: something new to someone somewhere, and also because they are regarded as a source of inspiration and a possible hindrance in the implementation of the desired event design. Products encompass the raw materials that are used in creating the flower arrangements and the general room décor as well as the technologies that stand behind them, while policies refer to national or local governmental mechanisms that seek to guide and fund innovation. These categories represent (f)actors that bring important contributions to the innovation process, while at the same time representing sources of major business risks for the event management company. The article follows the way in which these four items interact during the innovation process which was split into four stages: idea generation, negotiation of the idea, preparations for implementation and implementation of the idea. We conclude with the observation that innovation in event planning is human centered, the main referential system being based on the dyad company-client, a thing which has not been explicitly researched until now. Also we suggest that before trying to understand the way in which companies innovate, it is critical to undergo a thorough assessment of the entrepreneurs’ perception of business risks.
There is still much work to be done in understanding the link between body, awareness and technol... more There is still much work to be done in understanding the link between body, awareness and technology, especially when it comes to those medical environments which focus on what happens inside the body and outside of human exteroperception. This essay uses insights gathered by studying a common medical practice, the electrocardiography, as it is performed and inserted into the illness narrative by patients. Through direct observation and interviews with patients which have undergone such a medical procedure, the paper explores the possibility of the electrocardiogram as a form of mediation for body awareness. Is it or can it become a type of body awareness in itself? What exactly constitutes this mediation: translations, forms of reading/understanding? The influence of this practice is visible at the level of the human embodiment as it transforms the way in which patients express their bodily symptoms. The graphology of the heart activity manages to have an enormous impact on the understanding of the disease and the felt symptoms, being simultaneously a proof of the existence of certain happenings inside the body and a graphic method of representation of heart’s activity which is assumed to provide an objective and accurate representation of bodily reality. The power of this medical practice comes from what Clark (2004) calls the transformative potential of the bioelectronic coalition that results. The electrocardiogram competes and completes at the same time the insights garnered through the means of the body, meaning the interoceptive sense. The practice of making sense out of the lines inscribed on the piece of paper is mediated by cultural and media representations which use this kind of graphical representation to suggest the medical condition of persons, be they dead or alive, which places the analysis conducted inside a specific island of meaning. However, through globalization, many such representations have started to circulate world-wide and thus bring a common ground useful to suggest a start for a more global understanding of the way in which a mechanical representation of bodily symptoms might have an impact on the individual’s awareness of his/her own body.
In designing a lecture, the tutor should consider the main objectives of the learning process, va... more In designing a lecture, the tutor should consider the main objectives of the learning process, various teaching and learning methods and the assessment or evaluation criteria and procedures. These elements are reflected in student performance or skills and competencies accomplished/acquired during the learning process. Still, presumably not that many instructors are actively aware of the different types of knowledge they are exposing their students to, or concerned with their impact on the learning outcomes. In this article we use Bloom’s taxonomy of knowledge to evaluate the teaching-learning process as to understand how to maximize the student performance in various types of disciplines. Data was collected by a questionnaire applied to a sample of 98 students enrolled into Business Administration master studies. We used total sampling, considering the students attending more than 50% of the lectures of International Business. The quantitative analysis has targeted two areas: the student’s perceived level of exposure to the four types of knowledge in the Bloom taxonomy, and the actual level of knowledge of each type they had acquired after being exposed to the International Business lectures. Our conclusions reveal that when instructors increase the opportunities for students to encounter the four types of knowledge, students maximize the learning outcomes. However, the four types of knowledge should be balanced in order to achieve maximum results, as they are mutually dependent and imbalances leave students with cognitive gaps. Our results provide useful insights for management teams, when redesigning the curriculum for increasing academic performance. They will also provide instructors with a new outlook on assessment and enable them to create more conceptually and practically stimulative assignments and projects, in order to help their students go beyond the knowledge level to higher levels of thinking.Thus, effective knowledge management will lead to increased student satisfaction with course content and to sustainable reputation building for the master program.
Keywords: knowledge management, types of knowledge, teaching and learning process, academic performance, Bloom’s taxonomy
My paper concerns the expression of the visceral sensations encountered in patients suffering fro... more My paper concerns the expression of the visceral sensations encountered in patients suffering from cardiac arrhythmia through figurative language. Drawing from the definitions of Aristotelian metaphors, I discuss the uses and dis-uses of metaphors in describing illness embodiment. First, I address the animal and mechanical metaphors used to describe cardiac symptoms and then I move on to assess the metaphorical value of medical terminology from the perspective of the patient. Based on the ethnographic material, I arrive at the conclusion that the name of the diagnostic can be regarded as metaphoric language and address the issues that derive from this conclusion.
The paper concerns the topic of academic entrepreneurship as it has been defined using the realit... more The paper concerns the topic of academic entrepreneurship as it has been defined using the realities encountered in biomedical and other hard sciences and the difficulties of applying those definitions to what happens in higher education institutions teaching social sciences and humanities. The problems with the definition of the concept of entrepreneurship in academia reverberate through the research focused with the identification of the prevalence of such activities in different departments, universities or even countries. The solution comes from going back to basics, to the meaning of entrepreneurship and to an extensive analysis to how it has been already applied to scientific and teaching endeavors outside the framework developed around the current word buzz: academic entrepreneurship. Some understandings seem to be wide enough as to end up transforming the entire academic life into an entrepreneurial paradigm and leading the study of academic entrepreneurship useless. By finding a middle ground between the two extremes, this paper presents a research method that will lead to a definition. The methodology proposed embraces the idiosyncrasies of the Romanian academic environment and is suitable for the study of emergent fields of knowledge by making use of ethnographic resources.
Conference Proceedings by Ramona Cantaragiu
In the past, several frameworks have been introduced in which business model innovation was to be... more In the past, several frameworks have been introduced in which business model innovation was to be understood and practiced. Here we focus on the innovative potential brought by the modification of the business model in accordance to the essence of corporate social entrepreneurship. The conceptual model we are proposing does not aim at being a radical innovation but it tries to incrementally innovate the way in which traditional businesses are being conducted in a socially responsible manner by integrating corporate social entrepreneurship at any organizational level or throughout the supply chain so as to ensure business sustainability by taking into consideration all the stakeholders. Based on the business model canvas we bring together all the latest innovations concerning sustainability and responsibility such as hybrid value chain for customer value, the sustainable supply chain for supply management, social market matrix used for marketing strategy, etc. The purpose of CSE is to further organizational transformation for the benefit of the society. The main advantages that a business model innovation based on the principles of corporate social entrepreneurship brings to the companies are a greater orientation towards effectual thinking and an increased agility and resilience by allowing companies to alter their behavior and to become part of the background in which they usually operate and help develop it along with its own activities.
Uploads
M&M by Ramona Cantaragiu
Scientific Articles by Ramona Cantaragiu
responsibility, and social entrepreneurship. Also, secondary data in the form of official reports and other relevant documents available on universities’ and public and non-governmental organizations’ websites have been scrutinized. The examination reveals that, generally, universities experiment with different models of entrepreneurship, both business and social. Our findings also suggest that universities which are society-oriented and driven by a social mission are more likely to transform into social entrepreneurial institutions than the others. The paper argues that a university with an entrepreneurial culture embedded in all organizational processes and institutionalized at all managerial levels tends to be more concerned with addressing current society problems or unsolved market needs. Our findings need to be further tested empirically in future researches.
achieved through education based on learning outcomes and student-centred economic faculties, within eight universities in Romania. The research was conducted by consulting the websites of the universities and faculties included in the analysis. The review standard for each faculty included: the type and content of the
programs of study offered in the three stages of education, organization and methods of disseminating research results, and services provided to students, including extracurricular activities. The results of the analysis confirm that the surveyed universities have dedicated and focused their efforts to reorganize the
curricula according to the requirements of the labor market, and increase the overall quality of education. However, student-centred learning practices are dissipated and quite restricted in the study programs. As a result of this analysis, the paper presents various measures that universities may take into consideration in order to ensure the spread of active learning practices in all educational programs.
Book Chapters by Ramona Cantaragiu
Conference Presentations by Ramona Cantaragiu
Keywords: knowledge management, types of knowledge, teaching and learning process, academic performance, Bloom’s taxonomy
Conference Proceedings by Ramona Cantaragiu
responsibility, and social entrepreneurship. Also, secondary data in the form of official reports and other relevant documents available on universities’ and public and non-governmental organizations’ websites have been scrutinized. The examination reveals that, generally, universities experiment with different models of entrepreneurship, both business and social. Our findings also suggest that universities which are society-oriented and driven by a social mission are more likely to transform into social entrepreneurial institutions than the others. The paper argues that a university with an entrepreneurial culture embedded in all organizational processes and institutionalized at all managerial levels tends to be more concerned with addressing current society problems or unsolved market needs. Our findings need to be further tested empirically in future researches.
achieved through education based on learning outcomes and student-centred economic faculties, within eight universities in Romania. The research was conducted by consulting the websites of the universities and faculties included in the analysis. The review standard for each faculty included: the type and content of the
programs of study offered in the three stages of education, organization and methods of disseminating research results, and services provided to students, including extracurricular activities. The results of the analysis confirm that the surveyed universities have dedicated and focused their efforts to reorganize the
curricula according to the requirements of the labor market, and increase the overall quality of education. However, student-centred learning practices are dissipated and quite restricted in the study programs. As a result of this analysis, the paper presents various measures that universities may take into consideration in order to ensure the spread of active learning practices in all educational programs.
Keywords: knowledge management, types of knowledge, teaching and learning process, academic performance, Bloom’s taxonomy