In contemporary society SMEs is the main generator of economic performance of a country. They contribute socially, economically, technically, ecologically, through elements of natural capital and the human factor to the sustainable development of a nation. Managers of small and medium-sized enterprises on their way to initiating and growing their own business continue to hit many aspects of development: incoherent legislation, bureaucracy, lack of financial resources, skilled labor shortages

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... others. With the desire to enhance the success of their own businesses and to cope with market conditions, among the managers appeared the need for external assistance or collaboration. It can be covered only with the help of institutions specialized in supporting and developing entrepreneurship in Romania. The objective of this paper is to identify the needs of business managers to develop collaborations or partnerships with specialized institutions correlated with the delimitation of the main collaborative institutions, the knowledge of the problems encountered in the collaboration process and the means of transmitting the information by them. In order to achieve the proposed objective, a quantitative research has been carried out among the managers of small and medium enterprises in Romania. Taken by random method the sample is probabilistic and the descriptive research was based on a questionnaire, the chosen method being consistent with the type of research. The major contributions of the research project are to highlight the relationship between enterprises and specialized institutions by identifying the need for assistance and collaboration between them in order to support profitable businesses.