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

Constantin Bratianu et al.
from new problems <strong>of</strong> economical development and global competition, such that <strong>the</strong> creative thinking
pattern to be more developed and integrated with <strong>the</strong> intelligent thinking one.
4. Conclusions
Strategic thinking pattern is an outcome <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> education and individual efforts. This thinking pattern
allows managers and business people to make decisions that are future oriented and focused on
competitive advantage. In emergent economies strategic thinking is necessary if decision makers
want to be competitive in a globalized market. Business education plays an important role in
developing strategic thinking. The purpose <strong>of</strong> this research is to evaluate <strong>the</strong> degree <strong>of</strong> development
<strong>of</strong> strategic thinking to our students enrolled in economics, management and business programs. In
<strong>the</strong> first stage <strong>of</strong> our research we create a spectrum <strong>of</strong> thinking models as components <strong>of</strong> strategic
thinking on four main dimensions: time, complexity, uncertainty and innovation. The most advanced
models <strong>of</strong> this spectrum – entropic thinking, nonlinear thinking, probabilistic thinking, intelligent
thinking, and creative thinking – are components <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> strategic thinking pattern. In <strong>the</strong> second stage
<strong>of</strong> our research we elaborated a questionnaire, and we distributed 5000 questionnaires to <strong>the</strong>
students from <strong>the</strong> main schools <strong>of</strong> economics, management and business from Romania. We
received back 3240 questionnaires, and we processed <strong>the</strong>m using <strong>the</strong> SPSS program. The general
average values obtained from this analysis are <strong>the</strong> following: time dimension – 3.21, complexity
dimension – 2.68, uncertainty dimension – 2.53, and innovation dimension – 2.86. By comparison
with <strong>the</strong> maximum <strong>the</strong>oretical values on our scale – 5.00, <strong>the</strong>se values demonstrate that business
education should contribute much more to <strong>the</strong> development <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> strategic thinking pattern,
especially on <strong>the</strong> complexity, uncertainty and innovation dimensions.
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge <strong>the</strong> support received for this work from <strong>the</strong> UEFISCSU Project PN II-
ID-1812/2008.
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