Adalékok az etnikai sztereotípiák tanulmányozásához
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Keywords: School network optimization; education management; school communities attitudes.
The results of the research on the Lithuanian School Network Reform are presented in this article. The research was funded by the Ministry of Education and Science of Lithuanian Republic. The article consists of five parts: 1) introduction, 2) theoretical background, 3) methodology, 4) research results, and 4) conclusions. In the first part the methodology and the sample of the research are described. Structural characteristics of the educational management concept in the context of educational reform as well as experience other countries in the realization of educational reforms are presented in the second part of the article. The analysis of scientific literature has highlighted the so called classical management principles: 1) realization of planning, organization, administration and control functions, or 2) significance of a socio-political, economic and cultural context, and 3) orientation to wards effective resource management described as educational management characteristics. The research sample (N = 520) are respondents from six municipalities involved in the school network reform: school heads, teachers, parents and pupils from Kaunas, Mažeikiai, Varėna, Pasvalys, Šalčininkai districts and Klaipėda city. Three questions were asked: 1) about problems; 2) about achievements in the process of network reorganization and 3) respondents’ recommendations on how the reform should continue. The results of the research highlighted problems on municipality and school level, i. e. middle and lowest levels of educational management. Ambiguities of the school network reform when the same things were assessed as problems and merits were highlighted. These ambiguous aspects are related to management of human and material resources. Local administration problems, slow and ineffective realization of school network reorganization policy as well as insufficient management of pupils’ transportation system especially a lack of school buses and information were essential problems on municipality or middle administration level. Problems on school (or lowest administration) level were: 1) management of pupils’ transportation system, 2) teacher employment and payment, 3) reduced school finances because of a decreased number of pupils. Some aspects of material and human management may be characterised as positive aspects of the school network reform, e. g.: 1) schools participating in the reorganization process are better financed and enriched of material base; 2) teachers may assess their competencies and qualifications. Despite this the respondents recommend: 1) to develop the systems of educational administration and finance; 2) to develop material resourses and 4) preconditions for higher education quality 5) to give more information about the reorganization to process of school network.
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Keywords: Communication; communication competence; interpersonal relations.
Communication competence in the context of the interpersonal relations in the work place are examined in the paper. Communication competence, communication abilities, content of interpersonal relations, their formation and developmental psychological aspects, variuos types of interpersonal relations are analized as necessity choosing the most suitable types of communication behavior. Communication competence is the part of the erudition of personality and is developmented in the processes of social-psychological and life-learning.
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Keywords: Social exclusion; social integration; factors influencing social exclusion.
Social exclusion is formation of separate groups of people on the basis social, capital and political contacts. Social exclusion is a part of social stratification. In the broad sense of the word exclusion can be described as limitation of civil rights for certain groups of people. The causes for social exclusion can be personal as well as public. Social exclusion process and social layers of society over the last decade have been conditioned by three main groups of factors: legal-political, social-economical and cultural-psychological. During transition period in the country social exclusion is mainly connected with the standard of life, employment, living place, age and sex. Having in mind which social elements are affected there have been differentiated four kinds of social changes: structural, social, functional and motivational. Research was carried out to research how managers value social exclusion and what they do to prevent social exclusion. The research data show the excluded group integration tendency into working environment. It has been determined that successful business administration conditions are considerably influenced by positive relations between organization and employee and identification of working values. The data points out that in order to reduce exclusion and poverty level it is necessary to invoke municipality, charitable and non-governmental organizations.
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Keywords: Welfare Programs; Social Security; Public Goods; Transitional Economies; Personal Income.
In the article the data of poll on how society assesses directions and results of market reform in Lithuania are given. It was defined that society assesses results of market reform through prism of personal welfare changes. It was found that aim of reformers to effective recklessly public sector goes beyond the provisions of the fairness that entrenched in the society: public sector subjects (except subjects having economical activity) activity making more effective often is followed by reduction of rendered services volume and quality, that becomes the main cause of the society dissatisfaction. Coexistence of private and public sectors and aspects of their interaction are investigated in the article; having analyzed results of concepts and empirical researches published in sources of scientific literature the peculiarities of the assessment of the private and public sectors efficiency are highlighted. Possibilities of the economic effectiveness indicator application are discussed, taking into account results of uneconomic activity of public sector subjects. On the basis of effectiveness and right dimensions the nature of the private and public sectors subjects as well as results of reforms going in public sector are analyzed.
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Keywords: The EU Structural Funds; the methodological basis and techniques of evaluation; an evaluation of structural actions at a regional level of Lithuania; an impact of structural actions on the territorial cohesion; the long-term benefits of Structural Funds.
EU structural funds play a crucial role improving social and economic cohesion of Lithuania. Amount of investment from Structural Funds of the EU is substantial and consequently EU legislation requires appraisal of structural funds. However, although systematic monitoring and evaluation framework is available at the national level and project level, a rigorous and systematic method of quantifying socio-economic impact of Structural Funds intervention on the local economies has not been developed to the same extent. Methodological basis and techniques of evaluations are discussed in the paper. First findings on the evaluation of structural actions at a regional level of Lithuania, their impact on the territorial cohesion are analyzed in this paper. Findings indicate a higher investment in infrastructure than in human capital and knowledge economy development, also the development in already strong cities of the country. This signals that growth generated by cohesion support might lead to widening regional disparities. For least-developed regions these funds should help to consolidate local resources and facilitate efforts to build up key infrastructure, human and physical capital that will help to guarantee their future economic success. At the same time, more-developed regions and big cities of Lithuania are likely in need to employ a wider range of different interventions addressing specific market failures that holding back their performance. The direct benefits arising from Structural Funds are only a part of a much wider picture. The real long-term benefits of Structural Funds are to be associated with the way in which each local economy of region responds to opportunities arising in the rest of the country and the EU as a result of the Single Market rather than Structural Funds in isolation. This emphasizes a need to work within the wider “global theory” of macro modeling rather than the narrower “theory of action” that tends to motivate policy makers focused on the role of specific Structural Funds programmes.
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Keywords: Learning Organization; management; employees.
The conception of changes is analysed and theoretically based in this article. According to theoretical assumptions and research results the conception of a learning organization is general. An empirical research that includes employees (N = 150) from various organizations and enterprises in Šiauliai region and Mažeikiai district is presented in the paper. The authors tried to identity respondents’ opinions on changes in a learning organization. The following specific features of a learning organization were identified: formation, implementation, evaluation and improvement of the strategy is purposefully organized as a learning process; a learning organization is flexible and open; every member has an opportunity of getting information, feedback is ensured; organizational climate promoting learning is creating; members of an organization analyze their work; employees applying acquired and reflected knowledge improve the organization’s activities and strive for strategic objectives. Survey generalized results let the authors state that professional knowledge and abilities must be continuously developed and improved mostly estimated in organizations. The purposeful organizational management creates preconditions for the successful work, adaptation to the changes and recognition of the clients’ needs.
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Keywords: A learning tourism organization; competition; manager competences.
Learning organizations as competitive organizations have come into the management field and terms with the idea to change not only already established organizational culture, activities, but also the way new learning organizations should compete in the expanding market. In order to successfully compete in the market, first, learning organizations should concentrate on developing manager competences to run tourism business. Scientific novelty of the paper lies in the re-search that was completed for the first time in Lithuania and Siauliai city and Siauliai accommodation institutions’ manager competences were evaluated in the aspect of a learning tourism organization. Scientific value of the research can be stressed in several ways. Theoretically, a different viewpoint of Lithuanian authors’ towards competence dimensions is presented. Practically, all the gathered information is useful for tourism companies’ managers to orient towards the learning competitive organization. The subject of the research is competences of a manager of a learning competitive tourism or-ganization. The aim of the research is to present the main competences of a manager of a learning tourism organization as a competitive one in Lithuania. The objectives of the research are the following: 1.to describe the relations between a learning organization and competition; 2.to present competences of a manager in a learning tourism organization; 3.to identify the main manager competences in Siauliai accommodation institutions as tourism organizations. The methods of the research are scientific literature analysis, survey, and statistical method – weighted average. Conclusions 1.Competitiveness is one of the criteria of a learning organization. Since the term “competitiveness” includes individual and institutional behaviour as the main factor, a learning tourism organization is oriented towards individual and institutional behaviour in the competitive environment. 2.Different authors present various dimensions of manager competences in learning tourism organizations: knowledge-awareness-attitudes, conceptual-technical-interpersonal. However, competences of new management in a learning tourism organization include ability to foresee, imagination skills, value coordination, empowerment and self-understanding. 3.The completed survey has shown that the biggest attention is paid to management and moni-toring (25%), also negotiating and persuasion (22%), change management (20%), and consulting (12%). Siauliai accommodation institutions’ survey has helped to clear out that 3–4 – star hotel managers are quite competent to perform in tourism and ser-vicing, while 1-star hotel and hostel and guest house managers need more theory, practice and experience to become more competent to run tourism and servicing business.
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Keywords: Consumers of water; polluted wastewater; relation of consumption and wastewater.
The objective of the paper was to evaluate statistically the contribution of economy spheres using water into the formation of polluted wastewater as well as to highlight the problems of water sector for further analysis. In Lithuania the main consumer of water is energetics that uses up to 94% of total consumed water amount. In 2004, for non-electricity puposes 224.8 mill. m³ of water were used for other purposes: 44.2% for domestic sector, 33.1% for fishery ponds, 21.5% for industry, 0.7% for agriculture, 1.2% for other needs. Compared to the data selected a decade ago, during the last years 2 times less amounts of water were used in domestic sector; in fishery and industry sectors water consumption decreased 1.55 and 1.4 times respectively. Consumption of potable water increased almost twice (from 8-9 to 17-20 mln.m³). During the study period total amount of polluted wastewater was constantly decreasing, on the average 26 mln.m³ per year (from 303.6 mill. m³ in 1995 to 171.6 mill. m³ in 1995). The amount of treated wastewater discharge into surface water bodies also decreased significantly. However, nearly 86% of discharged treated wastewater did not correspond to the European Union requirements. Only 14% of the whole wastewater amount was treated properly. In 2004, wastewater treated according to the new quality standards made up already 62% of the whole polluted wastewater amount. This was achieved due to new or reconstructed wastewater treatment facilities or investments However, our country is still far behind other EU countries where on the average 92% of wastewater are treated. However, the results of correlation analysis show that the amount of polluted wastewater mostly depends on water consumed for domestic needs (R2 =0.97, t = 16.1. The change of polluted wastewater amount corresponding analogically to the change of consumed water amount shows that during the study period no significant technological changes ensuring water protection were observed in the mentioned fields. After the investments into the water supply economy have been made, new treatment facilities were built and some old ones were re-constructed. This allowed to increase the capacity of water supply companies and thus to decrease the discharge of pollutants into surface water bodies. However, the exploitation expenses of the constructed objects increase the cost price of services provided by water supply companies, which results in higher taxes for services for the consumers. These are the new problems requiring further economical scientific analysis.
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Keywords: Šiauliai County; gross domestic product.
The aim of the research – to base forecasts of Šiauliai county gross domestic product changes up 2025. For the justification the predictive artificial neurons network method was used. The data were processed using software NEUROINTELLIGENCE. The brief analysis of Šiauliai county GDP changes from 1998 to 2004 was carried out. To calculate the forecasts the presumptive main GDP indicators assumptions were taken: Personal consumption expenses, the Government consumption expenses, the Total domestic investments, exports of goods and services, imports of goods and services. Šiauliai county GDP indicators‘ assumptions are based on the formed economy development tendencies and economic development assumptions, of which the most important are the following – Lithuania will carry out economy policy, which was approved in the communiqué on the accession of Lithuania to ERM II (Exchange Rate Mechanism – the EU requirement to evaluate transitional phase of country‘s preparation for membership in the Euro zone), i.e. stable fiscal policy, credit increase restriction, active labour market policy aimed to increase employment and labour market flexibility and favourable for economic development investment and business inducement policy. It was estimated that Šiauliai county gross domestic product will reach about 9664,7 Litas, and the GDP will increase up to 13500,1 m Litas in 2025. During this period in the Šiauliai county as well as in the whole Lithuania the rapid economic development will take place which already continues from the beginning of 2001. The three scenarios were prepared which provided possible Šiauliai county gross domestic product and its main indicators’ changes intervals. The previous main GDP indicators vertical and horizontal changes tendencies from 1995 to 2004, and the gathered data during the interviews, the carried out forecast of the Department of Statistics of the Republic of Lithuania, Finance Ministry of the Republic of Lithuania, and other institutions enabled to state that the most optimistic Šiauliai county gross domestic product forecasts scenario is the closest one to reality.
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Keywords: Insurance; market Services.
In the given article the author raises the problem of integration of the insurers of Belarus into the world insurance market. The main characteristics of the insurance markets of the member states of the European-Asian Economic Community are analyzed. The author also reveals problems and offers some measures of improvement of the activity of Belarusian insurance companies taking into account current integration processes. Proposals on the improvement of the insurers’ tax assessment, the development of the reinsurance system in order of insurance backlogs formation and use, the assessed fund development, working out the policy of rating evaluation of the insurers are presented in the article as well.
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Keywords: Management accounting; Performance measurement; Balanced scorecard; Activity based costing
Modern management accounting methods are useful instruments for data accumulation and transformation into valuable knowledge. On the other information generated with the help of those techniques becomes valuable knowledge if organizational learning is ensured. The main feature of organizational learning in this case is ability to apply theoretical descriptive method into practices, ability to incorporate information to decision making process, ability to improve and change the system according to changing external conditions and internal potential of organization. The research question of this paper is: Do effective changes of performance measurement system ensure organizational learning? The aim of this article is to disclose when implementation of modern management accounting conceptions ensures organizational learning. In the first theoretical part of the paper authors tried to analyze modern management accounting conceptions form effective organizational learning point of view and to determine main determinants of effective change management process while implementing ABCM and BSC. The research method, results and interpretations are presented in the second part
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Keywords: Higher education; student mobility; social adaptation of students; integration to the labour market; important competence; statistical data.
The aim of this article is to discuss the possibilities of the wider use of statistical and other information, collected at departments of studies in different institutions of higher education, for analysing the issues of the students’ adaptation in institutions of higher education. The article consists of 3 parts. Researches, which were performed earlier and which are in progress now, connected with the adaptation of students in institutions of higher education, are presented in the first part. Their analysis confirms, that the adaptivity interests scientist at present, as the essential competence of a contemporary man. The second part deals with the material, collected at departments of studies: results of the first term, statistics of students, who cancelled their studies due to failures or upon personal requests, statistical “histories” of several groups of students, which reveal wide possibilities of applying information in researches. The third part analyses recommendable means for departments of studies for the improvement of psychological – social, didactical, professional adaptation.
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Keywords: Inter-organizational collaboration; partnership events; Lithuania; municipality; county.
This article presents research results on features of partnerships events. Twenty-four municipalities were invited to participate in the research and 13 municipalities took part in it. Participants of the research were selected by random sample. Respondents expressed opinion about 27 inter-organization partnerships programs and projects that were implemented in 35 municipalities and 6 counties. Questionnaire on meetings consisted of four parts: management, recording, participants and group size, and decision-making. Research revealed, that leadership problems dominated in partner meetings, because meetings are conducted by person having the highest decision making power, and not by meeting facilitator. These meeting management problems were identified: meeting leaders generally influenced decision-making processes, they could not avoid involvement into general discussions on topic, did not manage meeting schedule. However, there are positive features also: 1) all meeting participants actively participate in a meeting. Persons with higher status or decision-making power usually do not dominate; 2) meetings commonly are optimal by group size, pending question number and duration; 3) participants discussing alternatives of proposal have enough information about problem situation; and, before making a decision, meeting participants seek for variants that are acceptable for all interest groups. Summarizing the research, it is true to say that essentially partnerships events are productive and helps to pursue project goals.
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Keywords: Cable TV; consumer opinion.
The associations of the brand of a regional cable TV are analysed in this article with reference to the respondents’ opinions. A trade mark has a certain image of particular moment, i. e. a unique set of associations, formed in consumer’s consciousness. The image of a trade mark often varies from what the client feels and experiences when using this brand, i. e. with associations in the consumers’ consciousness. The associations of a brand is one of the ways aimed at a consumer’s loyalty for cable TVs, as well as for any organisation, operating in a competitive environment. The research on the associations of a brand of a particular cable TV has shown that created and existing differ associations. Unprompted associations are mostly positive, however, there they also include some negative aspects.
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