Global Economical Strategy and the Romanian Reality

Building a coherent country branding program at international level requires a strong coordination between the government, the business sector, the decision makers from educational and cultural sector, the civil society and, the mass media representatives in any country. The paper presents the main efforts Romania has done to build a country image with a significant impact at international level. It focuses on the main policies and programs applied by Romania in the specific field of the national branding, offering a good analysis on the institutional framework and experience in promoting the country’s image internationally. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Romania, as it is today, is the result of two distinct, yet converging, historical series. The first one is the emergence, in the late 90s, of the CSR as an important force for global multinational corporations based in the western world. The second one is the fall of the communism in 1989 and the opening of East European (including Romania) markets to the world. The result was that global multinational companies entering the Romanian market have brought their global CSR strategies to Romania. However, given the Romanian local realities (corruption, ineffective law enforcement and regulating agencies, an economy left in ruins) global CSR strategies have failed to address local needs.