Pixel International Conferences

Given the increasing economic globalization and restructuring in the world political and economic systems, and the requirements for knowledge and information within that system, educational needs (in terms of structure, function, curriculum and approach) at all levels have changed. These educational requirements for the workforce of the future are extremely important. Much of the education and learning environment today is divided into very rigid academic disciplines, focused on discrete units of research. However, the global economy and knowledge based business requires a holistic understanding of systems thinking  Thus inter-disciplinary research approaches are seen as critical to achieving a more comprehensive understanding the complex reality currently facing the world system.

Some of the challenges for knowledge, education and learning will be ability for today’s learners to be more familiar and comfortable with abstract concepts and uncertain situations. Much of the academic environment today, presents students with ready-made problems and then asks them to solve them. The reality of the rapid-fire global economy, based on information and knowledge is that problems are rarely that clearly defined. It requires those seeking valuable employment to seek out problems, gather the necessary information, and make decisions and choices based on complex uncertain realities.

The main objective of the paper is to analyze the extent to which Bulgarian universities and, particularly, those in economics higher education field can face the demands of knowledge-based business and economy. The research highlighted the key role of universities as main investors in lifelong learning education, by including the opinions of the direct beneficiary - business, within the context of the Bulgarian society and knowledge-based economy. More specifically the paper highlight the requirements from the demand side (knowledge based business), as well as the existed bottlenecks in the supply-demand process.  The paper presents results based on a structured questionnaire survey conducted among business representatives and economic universities.