A project report on

Business Behavior

A case study with reference to

Academy of Economic Studies

Tudor Gabriela-Cosmina

Udrea Gabriela

Serban Andreea

Predoiu Vlad

Popescu Violina

Tufita Diana

Pavel Madalina

Roman Daniel

Trandafir Alina

Vatamanescu Vlad

Faculty Of Business AdministrationPage | 1

Business Behavior

A survey of students from the Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest

Introduction

One of the most frequently problem met nowadays among the students and not only, is to find a job on the romanian market. But this process is not a simple one; it implies research, guidance, some training and some experience, that you cannot gain so easily. As student financial support is closely linked to the employment status it is no surprise that this is a major issue. A glance in your purse or wallet and it's easy to decide: You need some cash and so a part-time job or a full-time job. There are also plenty of reasons why students go to work while also studying, like to make new contacts or to put themself to the test or to take the path to finding the dream job. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the efficacy of the university and of the resources that student dispose when finding a job.

Background

The Academy of Economic Studies (Academia de Studii Economice din Bucuresti, abv. ASE) is a high level state university, which was founded in 1913. Also, it is recognized as the most important economic profiled education institution from Romania. ASE’s headquarters is at Piata Romana, in Palatul Academiei Comerciale.

Our research regarding students’ business thinking was conducted in the main building of this university Caderea Bastiliei. This is the main and the most iconic building of the university. Uncountable students from all the university’s faculties walk on this building’s floors every day, and we’ve took a peek into their minds to find out their future interests regarding their career. The main topic of this study is the challenge between starting a business and being an employee.

In order to find out our colleagues’ business profiles we’ve used a survey that helped us to find more about our target audience. The gathered data shows off a very good score of future entrepreneurs, as a result of this university’s influence upon its students regarding business thinking. We were glad to gather our knowledge right from its source and we found this background as the most appropriate for our purposes.

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Objectives

Studies show that the business environment is underrated in our country, young entrepreneurs being overwhelmed by our unstable economy’s problems. Students usually find it easier to get employed in multinational companies or to go abroad and earn their bread by doing various activities.

One of the main purpose of this research is to get a feedback about the university and its influences on the fresh brains which are to lead our country in the near future. In this way, we succeded in identifying their attitudes toward business and get some ideas about the field of activity that they would want to enter. Also, as a secondary objective, we wanted to evaluate the influence on their current income upon their future lifestyle decisions and career options, as it’s a delicate subject nowadays to talk about .

Method

Research setting

This investigation was conducted as a project for the statistics subject at the Faculty of Business Administration, ASE. The observed area of the project was the main lobby of the university and the subjects of our analysis were students from the university. The Academy of Economic Studies is one of the biggest universities in Bucharest and the most important economical academy in Romania. It is a degree granting public sector institution and high teaching is the primary emphasis, along with the preparation of professionals in the economic field to go on the labor market.

Sample and measures

The data is a descriptive-qualitative research. Data collection can be derived from a number of methods, which include interviews, focus groups, surveys, telephone interviews, field notes, taped social interaction. Our data was based on interviews. Interviewing is a way to collect data as well as to gain knowledge from individuals.

The purpose of the research was to interview students from the university about what they think of their business behavior and to explore their views, experience and motivations.

The interview was a structured one. A structured interview is sometimes called standardized interview, and that means the same questions are asked of all respondents.

The subject group for this study were junior and senior level business students and incoming freshment that intent on finding a job, but also pursuing a business degree. The 99 students that we interviewed averaged an age of 21,65 and were composed of 56 females and 43 males.

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The analysis of the collected data

From this graph we can see that the students from FABIZ, REI and Marketing are the ones mostly found in the ASE lobby.

Our sample group was composed of 56 females and 43 males out of which 22 were under 20 years old, 73 were between 20-25 and 4 were over 26 – 2 of these 4 were students of CSIE Faculty.

We wanted to see how having a job and the level of income influences the students in their decision to open a business or not. As you can see in the pie chart most of the students interviewed were unemployed. Out of the 21 students that have a job only 2 said that they don’t intend to open a business while 12 of the unemployed ones also answered no this question. We can see that already having a job doesn’t stop the students to plan a future business of their own.

2 16

3

78

Students having a job

Less than 20 years old20-25 years oldOver 25 years oldNot having a job

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AMP CIG

Commerce

CSIE EAM

Economics

FABBV

FABIZ

Manag

emen

t

Marketi

ng REI02468

1012141618

1

78

9

4

79

17

1112

14

No. of students from every faculty

No. of students from every faculty

In the cone chart we compared the level of income with the intention of opening a business. The red cones represent „ yes” answers while the blue cones are „ no” answers. As you can see, most of the students had an income below 500 RON and between 500-1000 RON. As the income increased so did the intention to not open a business decrease. Only 2 of the students with an income above 1000 RON answered no. We can say that students with a lower income are less willing to take a risk and open a business and might feel like they don’t have enough resources to open a business.

less than 500 RON

500-1000 RON

1000-1500 RON

1500-2000 RON

more than 2000 RON

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

75

10

1

24

28

18

6

9NoYes

The next question we asked was about the field of activity they would like their business to be in.

1 1 1 2

12

1

31

9

11329

2

16

1 1

Field of activityAgricultureAccountingClothingCosmeticsEntertainmentEvents planningITJuridicProductionReal estateRestaurantRetailServicesTransportsTourismWellnessNot decided

We have 14 fields of activity as answers out of which services is the most popular with 29 students choosing it followed by tourism with 16 picks, entertainment with 12 and production

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with 9. It seems that the new entrepreneurs will focuse on people and their needs and they will try to provide good services and products to satisfy them. If we look on the list we can see that the fields covered are pretty much what we need in a life time. The new entrepreneurs have it all covered.

For the students that don’t have a job we asked them when they intend to find a job. 60,81% of them want to get a job in the next year. Out of these, 11 are under 20 years old, 1 is over 25 and the rest of 33 are between 20-25 years old. 14,10% of them want to get a job in the next 2 years with 2 out of 11 having less than 20 years old. Only 5% want to get a job in the next 3 years, all are between 20-25 and 21,79% want a job in the future. Out of them 6 are under 20 years old the rest of 11 being between 20-25 years old. We can notice that a quarter of the students that want to get a job in the next year are under 20 which tells us that the freshmen are ready and willing to get some work experience soon. 35,29% of the students under 20 said they want a job in the future which points out the fact that they don’t yet know when they will start looking for a job. Overall 76,92% of the students could give an exact answer about when they plan on getting a job.

45

11

4

17

The intention to find a job

in the next yearin the next 2 yearsin the next 3 yearsin the future

We were curious to see how the gender influences the way students inform and their preferences. In the cone chart you can see how many females and males use the Internet, TV, magazines and newspapers and friends as a way of informing. Our sample was of 56 females and 43 males. Regarding the Internet only one female and one man don’t use this mean so from this point of view the two categories are equal. When it comes to friends, 50% of the females use this way to keep informed while 62,79% of the males get informed by their friends. This is one more proof that women prefer more personal talks with their friends rather than what you can see on your own on the news ( ). Regarding the TV, women have a slight preference towards this mean of information, with 39,28% of them watching, while the men questioned watch TV in a proportion of 32,55%. When it comes to magazines and newspapers 30,35% of the women and 25,58% of the men read to stay informed.

As a conclusion, the Internet is the most used mean to get information with almost 100% of the students interviewed using it. The next popular mean is our friends although males have a clear preference for it. The TV, magazines and newspaper have about the same popularity among students, females having a slight tendency towards using them.

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Internet

Frien

ds TV

Magazi

nes an

d newsp

apers

0

10

20

30

40

50

6055

2822

17

42

27

14 11

How do females informHow do males inform

Wanting to find out more about our students we asked them about how they spend their free time, if they are part of a student organization or an NGO, if they go to trainings and if they consider interships to be useful. In the cylinder chart you can see that only a quater of the

students are members of a student organization or an NGO. Interesting is the fact that even though only 25% of them are members, 50% of them participated in at least one training.

Only 36% of the students that are members in a student organization or an NGO participated in a training while 55,40% of the students that are not members participated in trainings. We can notice that being a member of such an organization doesn’t mean that you will for sure

participate in trainings. Regarding interships, students see them with good eyes, with 90,90% of them saying that they are useful, while 9,10% of them are sceptic. None of the students that are members of an organization were part of the 9 sceptics, but we noticed that 5 of them (so

more than half) were males with only 1 of them participating in a training. Out of the 4 females 2 had been in a training and 3 of them were under 20.

020406080

25

50

9074

49

9

YesNo

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The last thing we asked was the opinion of the students about the faculty and if they consider that the faculty helps them in fiding a job. The results were as the pie chart shows, 69 were in favor while 30 said no. With 30,30% of the students considering that the faculty won’t help them in finding a job we became interested in this particular group because it’s quite a signifient number and by comparing all the data we have we tried to see if we can draw some sort of pattern for these students.

69

30

Do you think that the faculty helps you in finding a job?

YesNo

First of all we saw that 15 of them are males and 15 females meaning that 34,88% of the men and 26,78% of the women from our sample. In this case, males seem more likely to not find the faculty helpful. Regarding the age, 6 of them are under 20, 22 between 20-25 and 2 of them over 30. For the ones under 20, the freshmen, we can expect them to change their mind after attending more courses, but the majority of 80% that has experience in the faculty is less likely to change its opinion soon. We belive this is due to the fact that many of the students expect more practical experiences in faculty, but they often forget that we are after an academic degree rather than a professional one.

9 of these students already have a job. It might be a reason to why they don’t find faculty helpful, their experience most likely already teached them a thing or two or their field of activity is different from what they are currently studying. 13 of them plan on getting a job in the next year, 5 of them in the next 2 years while 3 of them want a job in the future and because it might be in a different domain than the one they are preparing for we can again understand why they don’t find faculty helpful. We consider this to be the main reason for why students answered no to this question.

The income of these students was as it follows: 7 under 500 RON, 10 between 500-1000 RON, 5 between 1000-1500 RON, 1 between 1500-2000 RON, 7 with more than 2000 RON. While more than half of the students have low incomes it is interesting the fact that most of the students from our sample with a high income, the ones with an income over 2000RON in particular, don’t find faculty helpful for getting a job.

When it comes to ways of keeping informed, the Internet is of course the most used, with only one exception. 18 of them talk to friends, TV has 6 users while 5 read magazines and

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newspapers. These numbers are close to the ones from the sample so we can’t see this as a particular difference.

Regarding the membership in an organization or an NGO 7 of the students are part of one which is more than a quarter of our sample. This was a stunning discovery because we consider that being a member of any organization would have taught the students about how everything you do now will come in handy in the future. 20 participated in a training – this is also a high value because going to trainings is similar to being in an organization, same principle applies here. 26 find interships helpful. Finding 4 of the sceptics about the interships here it was not really a surprise, but it did surprise me that there were not more. Only 2 of these 30 students don’t want to open a business.

As a conclusion, the students that don’t consider faculty helpful in getting a job are more likely to be men influenced by either the lack of academic experience or that have a major that doesn’t match with their current/future field of activity. Besides that, they are typical students fitting the sample we chose.

Conclusions

The purpose of our study was to investigate the student’s attitude toward business and to receive also a feedback about the university. To this end, the data gathered showed us that students believe that the faculty has an important role in finding a job, although there are some scepticals regarding the success of having a job at the end of the faculty.

The respondents were from different faculties from ASE, and the final conclusion is that regardless the main activity of the faculty followed, the majority of the students want to have their own business.

A major assumption of this study is that to influence student success, faculty must be involved in systematic and ongoing activities to acquire and enhance their own pedagogies, teaching and learning strategies, research, and professional development. So our university can and should do more to help.

The most important fact that we wanted to show is that the majority want to have their own business, so this fact prevails and seems to be on an upward scale.

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Appendix 1

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Appendix 2

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