Chapter 4 The Role of Entrepreneurial Education in the Development (and Success) of Family-owned Technology-based Businesses in Romania

The chapter analyzes tendencies and initiatives regarding entrepreneurship development and support at European Union and Romanian levels, and also the role and importance of education by investigating the existence of specific training courses for entrepreneurs and guiding successors from family-owned technology-based businesses. The purpose of the analysis is to determine the tendency to involve graduate students in entrepreneurial field and to provide solutions to streamline entrepreneurship education and educational institutions. The chapter focuses on the difficulties faced by the Romanian family-owned and technology-based businesses (in general) and small businesses in particular – the aim of this chapter is to reveal that – while [technology] entrepreneurship and small business management are topics fairly well covered by the engineering curricula of the Romanian technical universities – the problem of business succession (either property or management succession) is not discussed ; therefore, there is no wonder that entrepreneurs are not prepared to make the related decisions ; even worse, they are not aware of the capital importance of planning the succession process well in advance , and – as result – their decisions in this regard are precarious. Conclusions can be useful to engineering professors, university managers and policymakers as well as young people who want to pursue an entrepreneurial path or are about to take over the management of the family business; they should realize that entrepreneurship is not just starting-up a business, but it involves a way of strategic thinking which leads to attitude formation and development of useful skills in the field of business development and management.