Abstract:

Small and medium-sized enterprises are considered the backbone of an economy, these companies are an essential source of economic growth, dynamic and flexible in advanced industrialized countries, as well as in emerging economies. However, they are very prone to risk due to the lack of resources. Lack of resources can also be a determining factor in the implementation of risk management. SMEs need to adopt strategies and methodologies, given that they lack the resources to respond promptly to threats from the internal and external environment. This study attempts to investigate the current state of risk management in Romanian SMEs regarding the existence of risk management practices, the degree of formalization of risk management and difficulty level of some activities necessary for the proper functioning of risk management. For accomplish all these objectives, a questionnaire was conducted in order to collect data from Romania SMEs. There were 42 responses received with seven incomplete responses that were deleted, resulting 35 usable responses, accounting for 23.33% response rate. The results revealed that about two thirds of the Romanian SMEs reported the presence of risk management practices, 34.29% of them have an empirical approach to risk management using their own methodologies and only 11.42% say there is no formalization of management risk. Romanian SMEs have attributed a normal degree of difficulty to most of the risk management improvement activities, only activities to ensure an adequate budget and to attract and retain human resources specialized in risk management have been perceived as difficult.