Journal of Knowledge Management, Economics and Information Technology

Public funding of higher education is an important topic within European governmental agenda, especially in times of budgetary austerity. Thus, given the challenges higher education industry faced in the last decades, the present paper aims at identifying the strengths and weaknesses of a few national funding patterns of higher education institutions (HEIs) within the European Union. Using the method of content analysis, the study conducted in Finland, Greece and Romania also reveals the effects the national funding patterns might have on the competition and competitiveness of national HEIs in the European higher education market. The issue of performance funding of HEIs is also addressed. Moreover, the authors argue for the necessity of integrating institutional performance indicators as an important criterion for allocating public resource to HEIs, in order to raise quality, competition and competitiveness of national HEIs on the European market of higher education.

  Funding Higher Education in a few EU Countries: Implications for Competition and Competitiveness in Higher Education (703.1 KiB, 2,181 hits)

In today’s context, marked by globalization and increasingly wide recognition of interdependencies, competitiveness has become an essential condition for market success. Starting from these considerations, the authors of the present paper intend to forward a research survey related to the impact of the influential factors of economic competitiveness on the firms operating in Romania’s West Region, research using a direct study method to grasp the firm managers’ perceptions regarding competitiveness factors of influence. The paper ends by presenting several proposals regarding the identification of measures for the economic competitiveness growth, both micro- and macro- economic. Consequently the paper approaches a subject of current interest, which stirs the preoccupation of specialists, governments, mass media and, last but not least, the interest of entrepreneurs, irrespective of their domain of activity.

  Impact of the Influential Factors of Economic Competitiveness upon Romania’s West Region Firms (705.5 KiB, 2,134 hits)