The Conceptualization of Strategy within an Emerging Economy Framework: The Case of Romania
Zenovia Cristiana POP, Ovidiu-Niculae Bordean

Abstract
Research in strategic management focused primarily on studying strategy formulation, implementation and control in companies that operate in developed economies. Other studies stressed the importance of competitive and anti-competitive strategies in Romanian companies by using secondary data sources. The absence of a trust culture between researchers and managers from emerging economies made it difficult to analyze the strategy conceptualization and orientation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the view of Romanian small and medium size enterprises’ managers, through a qualitative in depth interview, useful in framing and formulating the strategy concept. The results of the study show that Romanian managers have a modern understanding of the concept. Although they define intuitively, they are in fact using many of the definitions of strategic management literature and are framed in the developed market view of strategy. Other results pointed out that the small firms may be adopting a low cost, a differentiation or even a focus strategy.

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