Capabilities of SMEs in Romanian clothing industry

The clothing industry represents an important sector of the economy in Romania, with 10% of export and 3% of GDP. Nearly 99% of companies active in this area are small and medium businesses. In order to generate competitiveness on local and international markets, it becomes vital for these types of enterprises to investigate new managerial approaches, methods and capabilities to sustain a high rate of growth and manage environmental challenges. We have to consider also that the economy undergoes a series of radical transformations which create conditions for appearance of knowledge-based economy. We try to analyse in this paper the connections between design management as a capability in connection with change and performance in context of knowledge based society. In order to achieve this task, we conducted a research based on 79 small and medium enterprises from clothing industry and results suggest positive, direct connections between involved variables.