Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Intellectual ...

Constantin Bratianu et al.
Academy <strong>of</strong> Economic Studies, Bucharest. Based on this pilot research we made some minor
changes in this questionnaire. We distributed 5000 questionnaires to all important schools <strong>of</strong>
economics and business from Romania (i.e. schools having both undergraduate and graduate
programs). We received back 3240 questionnaires (64.8%). We processed <strong>the</strong>se questionnaires
using a SPSS program. For testing <strong>the</strong> internal reliability we computed <strong>the</strong> Cronbach’s alpha, and we
got <strong>the</strong> value <strong>of</strong> 0.87, which was considered a good one.
The first part <strong>of</strong> our investigation is concerned with <strong>the</strong> average values for <strong>the</strong> four dimensions,
evaluated for <strong>the</strong> whole set <strong>of</strong> questionnaires, and <strong>the</strong>n for each category considered: male, female,
undergraduate, graduate, urban, and rural. Final results are presented in table 1. Considering that <strong>the</strong>
maximum value for each dimension for strategic thinking is 5, we can see that <strong>the</strong> highest value for
<strong>the</strong> average thinking dimensions is 3.21, for <strong>the</strong> time dimension, and <strong>the</strong> lowest average value is 2.53
for <strong>the</strong> uncertainty dimension. These values demonstrate <strong>the</strong> fact that our students are almost halfway
to <strong>the</strong>ir strategic thinking pattern development. Illustrations for <strong>the</strong>se average values are given in
figures 1-4.
Table 1: Average values for <strong>the</strong> strategic thinking dimensions
Dimensions General Male Female Undergrad Graduate Urban Rural
Time 3.21 3.22 3.21 3.18 3.30 3.24 3.09
Complexity 2.68 2.74 2.65 2.65 2.73 2.71 2.52
Uncertainty 2.53 2.62 2.50 2.53 2.54 2.56 2.39
Innovation 2.86 2.83 2.87 2.82 2.96 2.89 2.72
For <strong>the</strong> time dimension, students have developed mostly a dynamic thinking model which means that
for many <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>m events entropy and future focus is not yet developed. Most <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>m are focused on
solving operational problems for present being. It is interesting to see that for <strong>the</strong> item In solving
problems I use always <strong>the</strong> successful solutions from <strong>the</strong> past <strong>the</strong> average value is 2.76, while <strong>the</strong>
general value is 3.21, and <strong>the</strong> maximum value is 5.0. This is a very important finding for pr<strong>of</strong>essors
who teach courses in Business and Management, in order to stimulate through <strong>the</strong>ir study cases <strong>the</strong>
need for future orientation and working out new solutions for new problems.
Figure 1: Diagram for <strong>the</strong> average values <strong>of</strong> all students
This result correlates very well with that obtained for <strong>the</strong> item Not everybody in a company can create
new solutions, from <strong>the</strong> innovation dimension for which we got <strong>the</strong> average value <strong>of</strong> 2.12. For a real
business education based on strategic thinking it is necessary much more than just to have a course
about Strategic Management, especially for students in emergent economies where future orientation
is becoming a must. This need is higher for students coming from rural areas, where <strong>the</strong> time
perception is a little bit different than in urban areas.
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