The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility covers a wide range of actions which have been practiced for many years in Western countries. As well as in other developing and transitional countries, the concept of social responsibility emerged in Romania after 1990, concurrently with the setup of many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the entrance of multinational companies and was rapidly adopted by several firms. The main purpose of our paper is to investigate practices and actions related to social responsibility, which are undertaken by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Romania and to reveal which factors really matter in determining different degrees of involvement in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) actions. The level of social responsibility actions undertaken by SMEs often depends on the decisions of their managers and the value orientation of the entrepreneur. Moreover, the younger a firm is, the less likely it is that it gets involved in CSR. This is our main assumption: young ventures display a weaker propensity for CSR actions. In order to validate this hypothesis, we used survey data, collected from 84 SMEs, operating in Oradea, Romania. Data were collected between July-September 2016 and analysed by the authors through correlations, independent sample T-tests and linear regression modelling. Our findings reveal that there are significant differences between newly established ventures and those with a longer history; however, age is not a determining factor of CSR. Although, in the literature, there is no clear consensus regarding whether there is a different model of implementation of CSR related practices in developing and transitional countries, especially in the case of SMEs, our results show there are no essential differences between the models of CSR involvement as these are known in the theory and practice of developed countries.

Skills mismatch is a generic term that refers to various types of imbalances of skills and competencies offered and those needed in the labour market. The concept has become one intensely discussed and subjected to measurements in research amid international concerns about its human resource under-utilization. The article aims to analyse under-employment of economic studies graduates. This is achieved by analysing the results of a professional path survey, with bachelor graduates of Faculty of Economics, University of Oradea, conducted at the end of 2015. Our main research question was: which are the predictors of the over-qualification of University of Oradea. Faculty of Economic Sciences graduates. The analyses show that under-employment of our graduates is not explained by any demographic variables, but solely by employment outside the domain and specialization of education, as well as by number of jobs previously held by respondents.

In the context of the intensely debated topic of the impact of entrepreneurship education on students’ entrepreneurial intentions, the current paper presents findings of the entrepreneurial intentions of a group of doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers from different fields of study enrolled in the SmartDoct project—an entrepreneurship education project co-financed through the European Social Fund and implemented by the University of Oradea, Romania, between 2019 and 2022. Our paper investigates individual-level determinants of the intention to become an entrepreneur, grounding in the social-cognitive, planned behaviour, and human capital theories. Using content analysis of semi-structured interviews, the paper offers insights into the narratives related to the entrepreneurial intentions of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, including relevant suggestions regarding the impact of gender, field of study, perceived influence of behavioural control, social norms concerning social support, and of the role models. Our results document the capacity of entrepreneurial programmes to encourage business initiation via stimulating entrepreneurial self-efficacy, the importance of perceived behavioural control on explaining entrepreneurial intention, and the value of social support and of role models, as well as the salience of the gender and field of study in explaining the net effect of entrepreneurial training in the case of students enrolled in advanced research programmes.

Young people on the labor market is a topical issue both in academia and in the latest European and national policies. Young graduates are no exception. They invest in education and want a better match of their studies with the job. Some analyzes performed on AMIGO data and data performed with economics graduates help us to analyze the existing situation. The conclusions show us significant differences in terms of income, in terms of the field of study as well as the mismatch with the graduated field. In terms of gender, there are differences in job satisfaction, with men being more likely to reach leadership positions than women.