THE ROSIA MONTANĂ MINING PROJECT A BUSINESS-PSYCHOLOGY PRESENTATION

Abstract

In 1997, a Canadian corporation obtained the concession license for exploitation of gold and silver ores of an old Roman gold mine, at Rosia Montană, Romania, with the intention of developing it into one of the most ambitious business projects, of Eastern Europe. The intended technology for the project was “gold cyanidation” (also known as the cyanide process or the MacArthur-Forrest process) a technique for extracting gold from low-grade ore by converting the gold to a water soluble coordination complex. The essential agreement was a Canadian, 80% – Romanian 20% cooperation project, according to which, the Canadian corporation was to take the extracted gold out of the country leaving behind the cyanide-poisoned environment. Such a deal could have succeeded only as a result of a vast public relations campaign, which had to rest on the best possible application of business psychology factors. This paper examines the Rosia Montana project by using Herbert A. Simon’s views of the decision making processes in a given organization.

Keywords

• decision making, Herbert A. Simon, psychology, Rosia Montană

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