The evolving academic field of leadership in Romanian research and education

Abstract

Summary: After a hiatus of more than 40 years of communism and a transition period of more than 20 years, the Romanian society begins to understand the importance of leadership in the economic, political and educational arenas. The main responsible factors for the growing awareness of the need of well performing leadership in all the arenas of social life are the current socio-economic turbulences that directly impact citizens' standard of living and not a growing body of research and education in leadership. In this context, our research scope is to assess the progress made by the academic field of leadership in Romanian research and education, highlighting the resources it has for developing sustainable leadership models. For this purpose, we will identify and analyse the existing academic programmes in leadership, past and current research projects and the Romanian literature in the field. We will study their potential to produce leadership practices and models relevant for today's instable and challenging organizational environment. Based on these findings, we will also explore the measure in which Romanian leadership research manages to transfer its findings to the private and public sectors, in order to contribute to the overall competitiveness of the Romanian business environment. We will use a qualitative and holistic methodology based mainly on secondary research.