Key Features in Knowledge-Driven Companies

Abstract

In today’s Romanian business environment, an increasing attention should be laid on clarifying the organizational strategy, structures and systems within the corporate governance, and moreover a critical eye must be focused on the organizational culture, leadership, and alignment to ethical values. Organizational transparency makes sense rationally and ethically, therefore the business leaders and the top management must learn how to effectively build trust, communicate, and foster true values in a transparent manner. This paper proposes an introspective view over a Romanian entrepreneurial organization within the SME sector, where many and sudden changes at governance level took place in a relative short span of time, changes that influenced over time many critical aspects of human capital, including aspect of knowledge management. In our case, short-term gains prevailed over long-term interest and people were not prepared for these changes. By analyzing the effect of lack of transparency, communication and alignment over the employees’ engagement and involvement, the article draws on insights from different employees’ point of view, demonstrating that culture is capable of altering strategy and structure. The role of a leader of an organization is no longer simply to run the business on a daily basis, but to create the right culture based on ethics and values. It becomes essential to cultivate such a framework, based on leadership processes, toward achieving business objectives and related growth, profit, and return goals, outlining the future of corporate governance and what’s needed for continued effectiveness in a framework where knowledge is continually enhanced.