VALUES, MENTALITIES AND LEADERSHIP IN ROMANIA

Mariana NICOLAE Elena Ecaterina NICOLAE Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest

Abstract. The present paper explores the use of concepts in the Romanian public sphere with a view to demonstrate that there is a gap between the meaning of terms used in the Romanian and in the international discourse. Romania has been one of the important emerging markets in Europe, but the promises of increased standards of living and steady economic development seem to be still elusive in spite of occasional, particularly electoral, success stories. The paper will focus on the use of the terms values, mentalities and leadership to offer a possible explanation for the slow process of integration to what are considered European best practices in business. JEL Classification: A14, D23, M14, M12 Key words: values, mentalities, leadership.

INTRODUCTION To be able to discuss about values, mentalities and leadership in the process of harmonisation for Romanias meaningful integration in the European Union, it is important to define first the values which are specific to the Romanian society and secondly those that this society will have to adapt to in order to become a state fully recognised as useful and respected in the European Union. For this purpose it is important to discuss briefly the concept of values in general and then the values that the Romanian society of the first decade of the 21st century has or claims to have. What is the definition of values? The explicative dictionary of the Romanian language provides the following explanation: Value the feature of a set of things, facts, ideas, phenomena to correspond to the social needs and the ideals generated by these; the sum of qualities which give price to an object, a being, a phenomenon, etc.; importance, meaningfulness, price, worth. (http://dexonline.ro/search.php?cuv=valoare) This definition can be found almost in the same form in the dictionary of neologisms published in 2000, which allows us to get to the conclusion that the theoretical definition of the concept of value is relatively constant in time for the Romanians as well as relatively simplistic, at least in the public field, the one which is accessible without great difficulty and efforts. By comparing the above mentioned explanation to the one found in the Wikipedia public encyclopaedia, we can notice that this simple way of defining the concept is very concise. Wikipedia has an entire chapter for values with several sections where a difference is made between personal

and cultural (social or group) values, with references to the theory of values, virtues, sociological and ideological norms when talking about values, etc., focusing on various aspects which offer to those who are interested an overall image of the complexity of the approach to values in the Anglo-Saxon world. This chapter from Wikipedia has an equivalent in Romanian only since September 20071, and this Romanian version is very concise and not edited which is of interest for highlighting the public interest in values in Romania. On the topic of social class, without which the discussion on values is meaningless, the same source, Wikipedia in Romanian, includes an article2 of 20 words also from 2007. Wikipedia is an open source, where contributions are edited and approved by peer-review, but the existence or inexistence of an article is relevant for the interest of a specific community, even if it is a virtual one, in the respective topic. In the opinion of the authors of the present study, this demonstrates the frailty of the endeavours of the Romanian academic environment for making theoretical concepts popular, even an arrogance towards the communication of research and science to the general public due mainly to the fact that this activity cannot be yet found on the promotion ckecklist in universities and, therefore, a public lack of interest in essential fields of social life, such as the discussion about values. Values, mentalities and leadership in Europe Most researchers agree that the discussions on ethics and mentalities are less obvious, less noisy in Europe compared to the United States. This has been changing throughout the last two decades, as the integration phenomena have become more and more frequently present in the European public debate, on the one hand, and on the other, due to the fact that under the pressure of increasingly integrated international phenomena those situations which require value and moral evaluations are more and more frequently presented in the mass-media. There is an increasing concern for moral leadership and for the way in which it functions or not in various business organisations, both implicitly and explicitly. Leadership is perceived as an inter-relationship between persons from all levels of an organisation and, at the same time, from the whole economic system, through which people are connected by different forms of interaction. The focus on moral leadership underlines the need which exists at all levels of society for leaders to understand the importance of developing and maintaining moral standards and competences within the organisations. European thinking is fundamental for understanding the moral and axiological aspects of the leadership process not only in the European society, but by osmosis, in various other societies. Lately, the European leadership models and values have been defined mainly by comparing them to the American model, but not only. Unlike in the United States, where there is a very rich literature on business ethics, in Europe the identity of business ethics as a discipline is not very clearly formulated. According to some researchers, this happens due to the institutional, legal, social and cultural framework specific to the United States, which focuses on regulating ethics, a good example in this respect being The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Vogel (1992, p. 30) highlights that in the United States it is compulsory for a company to recognise the importance of business ethics and to promote it directly. This situation becomes obvious especially in business schools, where most colleges and universities offer at least one course of business ethics. On the other hand, as a direct consequence of teaching this subject, there is a great variety of university books

in the United States and a relatively high number of research centres whose main concern is business ethics. Vogel (1992, p. 30) underlines that the Americans have a unique approach to business ethics, the field being unusually visible in the USA and being approached, unlike in other capitalist societies, from the individualist, legalist and universalistic point of view, rather than from an epistemological perspective. The approach to values in Europe Most of European thinkers build their argumentation system around the idea that Europe is the home of the mainstream thinking, philosophies and good practices from the Western world. Europeans are those who first considered promoting Western ethics: the principles and approaches for evaluating and discriminating between good and evil, which were adopted by American companies, were mainly born in Europe. Most European authors make historical references going as far back as Ancient Greece, discussing Western theology, the natural and legal law, the social contract, utilitarianism and existentialism in order to demonstrate that the American ethical approaches are fundamentally based on the European thinking. An essential component of the ethical approaches is also generated by Europes religious heritage. The European roots are defined through the influences of the Catholic, Protestant, Islamic religions, and it is interesting to notice that many of the universities that teach business ethics have religious affiliations. The appearance in Europe of business ethics as a subject of study has become evident from the 80s. Since then, rapid developments have taken place and the subject of business ethics has become a fertile and dynamic field, characterised by the frequent appearance of studies concerning the evolution of ethics both from the personal and the organisational point of view. An important issue in the light of the present paper is the fact that discussions concerning moral issues and business depend to a great extent on culture and language. Language barriers which prevent the understanding of subtle differences in the use of concepts related to business ethics cannot be overcome just by adopting a common language, which is usually represented by American English. Enderle (1996) highlights that despite the fact that business is becoming increasingly international and that English is increasingly imposing itself as the dominant language of international business, ethical behaviour and principles are still deeply rooted in the culture of each individual or business community. Apart from the main flow of texts in English on the topic of business ethics, there are national concerns and discussions related to the philosophy of business and the moral concepts that characterise capitalism, to the new work relations, concerns for employee as well as employer loyalty, etc., which materialize in studies written in other languages than English. For example, the evolving literature in German is not part of this flow of translations from English, which narrows the apparently universal discussion issues presented in the specialty international literature in English. On the other hand, there is an increasingly important anti-American trend which has as a consequence the fact that some countries wish to distance themselves from the American texts and study books; this means that students receive imported versions of business ethics, study books that were translated or adapted in the respective languages, rather than be encouraged to develop their own mechanism of understanding based on their own language and cultural identity. In the same time, the insufficient knowledge of the language used in books on business ethics, as well as on the philosophical traditions of various cultures generates situations when the cultural content of some specialised texts remains

impossible to decode for a foreign reader despite a good knowledge of the respective language. The examples taken from the European business environment reinforce the image of business ethics as a science of the society, especially of human interaction and social structures. In Europe the evolution of economic structures is an organic part of the European history influencing the development of ideas and assumptions of how business should be conducted. In practice this amounts to the fact that there is an important economic, political and historical European input in approaching business ethics as a social science. There are of course major differences in ways of approaching business ethics throughout the European Union, but as the mobility of teachers and students is increasing, it is possible to notice a convergence in the approaches to these issues. The approach to values in the USA As mentioned above, the American approach to the study of values is consistent and public, and is based on a solid academic and legal infrastructure. Both the debates taking place in the American society concerning the morality of business activities and the various academic or pragmatic positions towards certain concepts coming from several industries are numerous. The existence of a large number of courses on business ethics, leadership, leadership and managerial strategies, at the level of secondary and especially higher education, with a mature market for training and self-development courses provided by both private firms, as well as by the academic community through specialised centres gives an overall image of the pragmatic approach to these concepts in the American society. One of the bestsellers published in 2004 was David Callahans book entitled The Cheating Culture Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead3. The book is a pertinent, documented and readable radiography of the contemporary American society, with an analysis of the most delicate areas subject to ethical dilemmas: the education system, the financial administration and the individual and corporatist taxing system, the mass media, the sports industry, and especially the world of great business. Callahan underlines the fact that in an economy where what really matters are figures and the profit margin it is difficult to assume that economic actors, no matter on what level, will choose the difficult and not always successful path of solving tasks in accordance with the increasingly complex and hard to follow rules and legislation which gave birth to one of the most profitable service markets that of legal consultancy and assistance. The approach to values in Romania Starting from the definition discussed in the introduction to the present study it is interesting to identify the values perceived as important by the Romanian society in this moment of its existence. One of the relatively few accessible recent surveys is the one carried out in September 2005 by IRSOP at the request of the European Union and which is entitled Romanian and European values (IRSOP, 2005). The survey conducted by IRSOP was considered to be a national survey representative for the adult population with an age of over 18, on a sample of 1001 subjects, with an error margin of 3 %. The respective study was based on personal face-to-face interviews conducted at the respondents homes.

Interestingly enough the survey starts from Constantin Rdulescu Motrus book The Psychology of the Romanian People published in 1910 with the following quotes: People in the West build to last, while Romanians improvise. Romanians work in bursts, not methodically; they have long periods of rest, but if need arises they work hard, just like slaves ... . They also waste their time in a way Westerners do not. Romanians consider the infringement of law as a sign of power and social recognition. Businesspeople elsewhere are feverishly consumed by the thoughts of work and concerned by the risk of battle; the Romanian businesspeoples souls display the ability of the politician. More often than not the profit of the Romanian capitalists results from the craftsmanship with which they use the state budget as if it were their own. We want to adopt the cultural goods of the Western world using the same spiritual abilities with which we managed so well to go through the unfortunate moments of our past. (IRSOP, 2005, p. 3) It is not very clear whether the authors of the survey started from the quotes above in order to demonstrate that the Romanian society is different today from what it was almost 100 years ago or rather they just wanted to offer quantitative substance to Rdulescu Motrus conclusions in 1910. No matter which the case is, if we analyze the results of the personality profiles for the Romanians in 2005 we discover that they are not so different from a century ago as compared to the people in the West. Romania still has a poor image management, but it is a pleasant surprise for many Westerners. Romanians often give greater importance to interpersonal relations at the workplace than to their professional objectives which disconcerts Westerners. The delimitation between someones private and professional life is much too fragile, in contrast with the strict separation of these aspects in the life of people in the West where the demarcation line between private and professional is very clearly established. Romanians also love to talk about themselves and about others. Nevertheless, it is possible to notice a certain evolution of cultural traditional values towards the West-European ones, a process which has become more rapid after the accession to the European Union. The study conducted at the request of the Delegation of the European Commission to Bucharest shows that the European political values (pluralism, rights of the minorities, equality between men and women, freedom, democracy) are to a certain extent rooted in Romania, but that there are also non-European values which are relatively widely spread: corruption and lack of respect for rules, authoritarianism, a conservative family system, ethnical and sexual stereotypes, intolerance. It is important to offer a brief, and therefore superficial, overview of the way in which Romanians have perceived their leaders throughout their history as this offers in our view an important perspective on how contemporary leaders are perceived. The dimension of the present paper excludes the possibility of including even an attempt to analyze this topic, but we considered it useful to make several references to the most admired and/ or controversial historical figures of the Romanians. One of the extremely popular instruments used to establish who are the most attractive leader figures in the Romanian history was an extremely successful show called Great Romanians4, which ended in 2006 with the following classification:

1. TEFAN CEL MARE (77493 votes) 2. CAROL I (52474 votes) 3. MIHAI EMINESCU (50640 votes) 4. MIHAI VITEAZU (48725 votes) 5. RICHARD WURMBRAND (46973 votes) 6. ION ANTONESCU (27483 votes) 7. MIRCEA ELIADE (17019 votes) 8. ALEXANDRU I. CUZA (16383 votes) 9. CONSTANTIN BRNCUI (14831 votes) 10. NADIA COMNECI (11825 votes) Various interpretations of this classification can be and were actually made, but for the present discussion we consider it relevant to focus on the fact that the Romanian society is very much oriented towards the past (the high number of participants in the survey justifies such a generalisation, otherwise debatable from various points of view). At the same time, it could be claimed that six out of ten choices are emblematic figures for the ideal of national unity and Romanian continuity in the territory generally described as the area between the Carpathians, the Danube and the Black Sea. The elements that gave birth to the new Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire were however not continuity, but evolving history5, the successive waves of migrating peoples, similar to the contemporary waves of economic migrations directed towards the European Union and perceived as threatening by Westerners who fear that they will lose their social comfort because of the barbarians pushing to get access to the welfare benefits and lifestyles projected by the film and media industry thus endangering an already fragile social balance. It is difficult to predict what solution will be found for the crises triggered permanently by the pressure of people willing to accept minimal wages, without social security, or black labour only for being able to earn substantially better than in their country of origin, unlike the EU citizens, who are selective concerning the type of activity they perform and the expectations they have from their employer. It does look however like a subtle irony of history that similar to Stephen the Great who was considered the athlete of Christianity guarding the borders of a Europe always threatened by invasions, nowadays Romania, the newest member of the EU, finds itself having borders with the non-European world and the task of protecting them according to the latest state of the art to defend the work places of the EU citizens against the Moldavian, Ukrainian or Asian invaders. This state of facts is also remarked by foreign researchers, who highlight that the former East-European pearl used its Roman roots to reinforce its western orientation and its geostrategic position as a natural obstacle against the Russian expansion and has become, according to the official political discourse, the last outpost of civilised Europe (Rohozinska, 1999). But this does not solve and does not explain why Romanian society is still dominated by stereotypes according to which the Western world, now represented by the European Union and not only, should be grateful that we exist and should direct their financing towards us, especially through structural funds, without expecting too much in return. The leaders of this country have the duty to find resources of political willingness to offer new, performing managerial structures that allow citizens to develop their leadership skills for becoming professionals in their own field of activity, without the necessity of using history as an excuse for the lack of real progress and social gaps in Romania,

which are exclusively caused by the others, not by ourselves. The Report of the Institute of Projects for Innovation and Development (2008) shows that the only chance for a good future in Romania is a profound and radical change of the mentality concerning the role and the functions of the intellectual elites in the modern society. In this respect, the authors of the report consider that it is necessary to create networks of national projects and to participate in international programmes, fully using the policies and instruments Romania has access to as a full member of the European Union. Another interesting, but not very frequently discussed issue is the one concerning the analysis of the period 1945-1989 from the perspective of the leadership system and the values of that age. We will try nevertheless to offer a brief overview of that period because it is a natural and necessary endeavour which explains some of the deficiencies of the contemporary practices. The stereotype used when approaching the communist period is that the activity of leadership was taken over by Ceauescu. In this situation, is it meaningful in any way to discuss the scientific leadership practices of those years? We believe the answer is yes. And we consider it useful to identify those practices at the middle and even at the grassroots levels of society for the simple reason that the Romanian society of those years functioned within the constraints imposed by the top leadership which led to the well-known disaster. The lack of communication and the complete refusal of the top to listen to the opinions of the specialists/experts and to act accordingly were among the main elements that triggered the crisis. One of the leaders attributes is to listen and to correct decisions according to the feedback offered by those with whom s/he works in a sincere partnership. It is relatively difficult to study objectively the period 1945-1989 for at least two reasons: a) there is an unexpectedly serious lack of information due to the destruction or to the misplacement of a large number of archives, documents, etc., and b) the emotionally dominated discussions tainted by acute political biases which still pervade most of the attempts to professionally evaluate the respective period. By trying to obtain legitimacy in the country and by adopting a specific type of economic nationalism, the communist leaders and especially Ceauescu made efforts to turn Romania into an industrial fortress; the forced industrialisation, the hyper-centralisation of decision-making and the avoidance of the international socialist division of work are key-concepts used to describe the economic policy strategy throughout the entire period of communist leadership. The result is known: along with the elements characteristic to a command economy, the country was left with an excessively diversified and oversized industry, outdated technologies, big differences between the economic sectors, a poor agriculture and one of the lowest life standards in Europe. (...) At the end of the 80s, the Romanian economy, the country, the people offered a desolate picture. After more than four decades of forced industrialisation, the competitive character of the economy was the lowest of the communist league, the differences between sectors and the poverty were increasing, peoples sufferance was unimaginable; Romania was far behind the neighbouring countries from the point of view of the institutional premises necessary for the postcommunist transition, the psychological preparation of the population for sudden changes and the social basis of reforms towards the market economy. Apart from these, the shock therapy of the 90s gave people the hope of an immediate and substantial improvement of the material conditions after the replacement of the leaders (or of the regime), which determined a high degree of intolerance to new austerity measures. (Dianu, 1996, p. 111)

The impact on the social sciences was terrible and with the exception of a short period of relaxation between 1966 and 1971, the regress was constant and humiliating for good faith professionals. The isolation from the international scientific word and the reduction or the destruction of the scientific infrastructure were means of eliminating the efforts to doubt the official policy. The monthly magazine Economic Issues the only magazine of economics in Romania stopped being printed at the beginning of the 70s, after it published a long and unconventional debate on the economic strategy of the country (Dianu, 1996). Nevertheless, there were concerns for connecting the Romanian thought to the the international one. It is interesting to identify in the academic publications of that period the presence of international ideas, of American references, due to which the respective publications looked like a sandwich: an introduction containing the portrait and homage brought to the leader, the realistic presentation of the data encoded in the political jargon of he day, but based on professional research, partial, but relevant conclusions, transparent beyond the actual words and, finally, the official conclusions expressed ambiguously to ensure the publication of the book. In the study Perfecionarea organizrii conducerii ntreprinderii, Nicolescu (1986) performs a structural analysis of the leadership activity in some Romanian enterprises in that period using the dominant model of the 70s. The analysis is based on a study conducted in 30 organisations, called in the discourse of the period enterprises and industrial plants, and the conclusions are close to what we refer to nowadays as good leadership practices, expressed of course in the same accepted jargon of those times. We may conclude that the issue of leadership was and still is critical for social and economic development. Although at present the power of people is increasing continuously this being the very essence of building a functional democratic society leadership represents a problem for emerging societies, which have for decades been deprived of a real political life and in which political leaders are a newly-born industry. Identifying good leaders is more difficult when the society is less transparent due to the inflexibility of the former communist regime, which affected the clandestine political education of the future leaders (Romanias case is remarkable from this point of view). Apart from a clear vision and professionalism, good leaders need popular support when unpopular measures need to be implemented; they have to combine the virtue of knowledge with a high moral level and with the policy of consensus, the latter being easier to achieve when several segments of the civil society are actively involved in the elaboration of policies (through public debate). The quality and morality of leaders are essential values for maintaining popular support for policies which do not necessarily have the expected result (Dianu, 1996, p.150). One of the few cultural studies on the profile of the Romanian employee and therefore on the values of the Romanian society in the economic field in general and in business in particular is the book Employescu by Adina Luca. Luca produces a replication of Geert Hofstedes classical study of the cultural dimensions using as a data base the surveys conducted on demand by Gallup Romania. The study demonstrated that Romania has the same values as other Balkan countries: great authority distance, high collectivism, femininity, high risk-avoidance and short-term orientation, which situates it at the opposite pole from the Anglo-Saxon countries, from which it nevertheless borrows all the managerial and human resource management practices.

Figure 1. Self-perceptions and values declared by Romanians in 2005. Source IRSOP, 2005, p. 4.

One of the relevant areas for the present discussion approached in the study conducted by Luca is the complex of authority and the leadership style in business. Romanian employees have the complex of authority, which creates difficulties in using any leadership style due to the difference between the behaviour demonstrated when perceiving inequality and distancing oneself from the authority and the hidden expectations of working in a consultative and participative environment. This oscillation between real and ideal situations is constant and unexpected form the perspective of people coming from a different culture. It appears especially when the leader, exasperated by the apparent passivity of the employees, makes use of more authoritarian methods to obtain faster results. If the leader is not aware of this difference, he will start using the authoritarian style in most cases and will later discover that he was left to solve the problems of the organisation alone, as the subordinates distance themselves progressively from such behaviour. Romanians need to be close to power structures and they want to be treated with confidence, to be able to express their fears freely and even to be allowed to avoid decisions they perceive as risky. They also wish to have a leader who is ready to take risky decisions in their place and who offers his support when they try something different. This expectation concerning the bosses behaviour (paternalism and in the same time consultancy) is contradictory and may seem impossible to fulfil, but on the other hand it indicates that the participative system will be more successful in the Romanian society than the authoritarian one. The same assumption can be applied in organisations: a democratic leader will obtain more successes through his employees. CONCLUSIONS

- As a member state of the European Union, Romania needs to make efforts to rethink its research priorities, to overcome local provincialism and institutional clichs, to clarify its concepts and to integrate itself in the mainstream of the international management and leadership ideas and good practices. - More studies and academic research are necessary in order to create a model of good leadership practices and of a Romanian cultural managerial profile. This involves a high level of collaboration, but the Romanian society is still fragmented and territorial. - Romanian society needs to be connected to the real meaning of those values and mentalities which are internationally operational not only at the top, by changing the roles and functions of the Romanian intellectual elites, but also at the grassroots, which means across the entire society. REFERENCES: 1. Barlow, C. B., Jordan, M., & Hendrix, W. H., Character assessment: an examination of leadership levels, Journal of Business and Psychology, 17(4), 563584, (2003). 2. Callahan, D., The Cheating Culture, Why more Americans are doing wrong to get ahead, A Harvest Book, Harcourt, Inc., 2004, ISBN: 0-15-603005-5 3. Ciulla, B.J., Ethics, the Heart of Leadership, ISBN: 0275 982 521, 4. Ciulla, B.J., The Ethics of Leadership, ISBN: 0155 063 170 5. Ciulla, B.J., The Working Life The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work, ISBN: 0609 807 374, Three Rivers Press, New York, 2000 6. Crciun, D., Etica n afaceri, O scurt introducere, ASE, 2005, ISBN: 973594-552-5 7. Dianu, D., Transformarea ca proces real - de la comand la pia, Editura IRLI, Bucuresti 1996, ISBN 973-0-00367-X 8. Enderle, G., A Comparison of Business Ethics in North America and Continental Europe, Business Ethics: A European Review, 5 (1), 33 46, (1996) 9. Georgescu, C., Malia, M., (2008). Reprofesionalizarea Romniei, Raport al Institutului de Proiecte pentru Inovaie i Dezvoltare (IPID), retrieved on 2 May 2008 from http://www.ipid.ro/ 10. Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., Mckee, A., The New Leaders, Transforming the art of leadership into the science of results, Time Warner Paperbacks, 2002, ISBN: 0-7515-3381-5 11. Hammond, S.J., Keeney, R.L., Raiffa, H., Smart Choices, A practical Guide to Making Better Decisions, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Ma, 1999, ISBN: 0-87584-857-5 12. Handy, Ch.B., Understanding Organizations, Penguin Books, 4th edition, 2000 13. Hofstede, G., Hofstede, G.J., Cultures and Organizations, Software of the Mind, McGraw-Hill, USA 2005 14. Hoivik, H.W., (Ed.) Moral Leadership in Action Building and Sustaining Moral Competence in European Organizations, in New Horizons in Leadership Studies, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 2003

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15. IRSOP(2005), Romanian and European values and beliefs: are they different or not? http://www.infoeuropa.ro/ieweb/imgupload/IRSOP_Romanian_values_Europe an_values_00001.pdf. 16. Kets de Vries, M.F.R., Leadership - Arta i miestria de a conduce, CODECS, Bucharest, 2003 17. Luca, A., Employeescu, O scurt caracterizare a angajatului romn, Interact, 2005 18. Nstase, M., Cultura organizationala si manageriala, ASE, 2004 19. Nstase, M., Lideri, leadership si organizatia bazata pe cunostinte, ASE, 2007 20. Nicolescu, O., Economia i conducerea ntreprinderii industriale, Editura Didactic i Pedagogic, Bucharest, 1980 21. van Luijk, H., Business Ethics as a Social Institution in Europe: A Search for Effective Alliances, Report prepared for the First World Congress of Business, Economics and Ethics, 25 28 July, Tokyo, Japan, (1996) 22. Vogel, D., The globalization of business ethics: why America remains distinctive, California Management Review, 2 (3), p. 164-171, (1992) 23. Zsolnai, L., (ed) , The European Difference: Business Ethics in the Community of European Management Schools, Dordrecht: Kluwer, (1998) Internet Resources www.businessmagazin.ro www.inaweek.co.uk www.leadership.ro http://www.leadershipreview.org/2005spring/article1_spring_2005.asp http://www.kon.org/leadership/leaders.html http://www.paecon.net/ www.markmedia.ro

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http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valoare_%28personal_%C5%9Fi_cultural%29 http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clas%C4%83_social%C4%83 3 Harcourt, Inc., NY, 2004. 4 http://www.mariromani.ro/primapagina.php . The total number of expressed and validated votes during the entire Great Romanians campaign was of 363,846 votes, divided as follows: site 265,850, telephone 16,336, SMS 81,660. 5 Cf. Neagu Djuvara, Thocomerius Negru Vod, Un voivod de origine cuman la nceputurile Trii Romneti, p. 9.