Transformations  in
Business & Economics

A Study Regarding the Influence of Business Size on the Availability of Business Organizations to Develop Alliances with Higher Education Institutions
Mihai F. Băcilă, Ovidiu I. Moisescu, Alexandra M. Ţîrca

ABSTRACT. In current turbulent environment, both higher education institutions and business organizations are facing new challenges, increasing competition, scarcer and more expensive resources, as well as various opportunities and threats. Recent studies have proven that business-university collaboration can often be a solution for coping with all the above mentioned aspects. The paper’s purpose derives from the enormous advantages this cooperation can bring in overcoming threats and exploiting opportunities, both to academia and businesses, and it consists in investigating the influence of business size, defined according to European standards, on the availability of companies to collaborate and develop alliances with higher education institutions. The empirical analysis is based on a survey conducted among 216 companies from the Romanian region Transylvania regarding presently used and potentially usable collaboration means between them and the biggest and most important higher education institution of business administration from the region – Babes-Bolyai University’s Faculty of Economics and Business Administration in Romania. The results indicate several significant influences that company size exerts on perceived level of graduates’ professional education, firms' interest in courses and consultancy provided by universities and firms' availability to contribute to students' professional education and to university specific activities.

KEYWORDS: higher education institutions, business organizations, collaboration, alliance, Transylvania, Romania.

JEL classification: M10, M31, I21, A2, P2.