ROMANIAN YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS FEATURES: AN EMPIRICAL SURVEY

There are many studies linking entrepreneurship and economic development. For specialists and public decision makers, developing entrepreneurship seems to be an easy policy action, even though actions and results are rather debatable. Unfortunately the relevant literature is not so generous concerning youth entrepreneurship. Youth is one of the most vulnerable groups in society, especially in the current economic and demographic situation in European Union and worldwide. At the same time, youth is the period when most people engage in their first job, are gaining financial independence and are assuming new responsibilities and roles shaping their identity. With respect to this, starting their own business is a natural choice for many young people. When considering entrepreneurial potential of young Romanians, there is almost not any data available. This paper aims to disseminate the results of a survey focused on young entrepreneurs, designed to fill the gap in the literature about Romanian young entrepreneurs’ features. The empirical study was divided in five parts: A. Personality of young entrepreneurs, highlighting the main features of behaviour and personality of young entrepreneurs. B. Professional background, focusing on young entrepreneurs’ background and how it influences their interest and performance improvement. C. Risk and crisis acceptance, highlighting the ability of young entrepreneurs to deal with critical situations. D. Business and business environment, focusing on internal and environmental aspects of the business. E. Social - cultural attitude, highlighting the attitude of society (incentives and disincentives) to entrepreneurial initiatives of young people. This are excerpts of results from the first part, regarding personality of Romanian young entrepreneurs, concerning issues like level of independence, capacity for innovation, self-confidence, decision making process, level of persistence flexibility of young entrepreneurs, opportunities, energetic capability, social goals, entrepreneurial incentives or entrepreneurial determinants. In the end, we highlight the main characteristic of young entrepreneurs, as they occurred according to survey.