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 Administration

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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. ASEs 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 universitys faculties walk on this buildings floors every
day, and weve 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 weve 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 universitys 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 economys 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 its 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

No. of students from every faculty

17
14
11

12

No. of students from

every faculty

9
7
4

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
dont intend to open a business while 12 of the unemployed ones also answered no this
question. We can see that already having a job doesnt stop the students to plan a future
business of their own.

Students having a job

2

16
3

Less than 20 years old

20-25 years old
Over 25 years old

78

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Not having a job

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 dont have enough
resources to open a business.
28
24
18

5
1

No
Yes

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

Field of activity
Agriculture

Accounting

Clothing

Cosmetics

Entertainment

Events planning

IT

Juridic

Production

Real estate

Restaurant

Retail

Services

Transports

Tourism

Wellness

11 1 11
2
16

12
1

9
29

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Not 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
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 dont 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 dont 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.

The intention to find a job

in the next year

17
4
11

in the next 2 years

45

in the next 3 years

in 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 dont 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
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clear preference for it. The TV, magazines and newspaper have about the same popularity
among students, females having a slight tendency towards using them.

55
42
28 27

22
14

17

11
How do females
inform
How 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 doesnt 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

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females 2 had been in a training and 3 of them were under 20.

90

74
50 49
25

Yes
No

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 wont help
them in finding a job we became interested in this particular group because its 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.

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

Yes

30

No
69

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
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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 dont 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 dont 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, dont 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
newspapers. These numbers are close to the ones from the sample so we cant 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 dont want to open a business.
As a conclusion, the students that dont 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
doesnt 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 students 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.

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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.

Appendix 1

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Appendix 2

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