Characteristics of Entrepreneurs in Newly Created Companies. A Comparative Analysis by Romanian Development Regions

Back in 1992, Adam and Schwartz have stated that in all Eastern Europe, privatization was fundamental for the transition from plan to market. The transition was supported by the entrepreneurial initiative, that took advantage from a new open economy [1]. The characteristics of the entrepreneur can influence in a major way the business success and development, the well-being of a nation being closely related to the intensity of the entrepreneurial activity. With no doubt, entrepreneurship is vital for the national economy, being an important growth factor and contributing significantly to the long-term prosperity. For the countries in transition, as Romania, the massive loss of jobs after 1990, determined by “the shrinking of the state sector”, was compensated partially by the small business sector that was the “main factor driving economic growth” and absorbed also the ”unemployment”. The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether there are significant differences in the profile of the founders of newly created enterprises (especially the level of education and previous socio-professional category of founder/manager) from developed regions in Romania during 2010-2016 taking into consideration the rural and urban areas. The research methodology is based on a descriptive analysis and application of a correlation coefficient, using the data collected from the Romanian National Institute of Statistics and from the website of the European Commission for the timeframe mentioned above.