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The article presents a variety of e-government assessment methodology, and on the basis of municipal websites assessment survey instrument, developed by E-Governance Institute at Rutgers University (United States of America) and the Global e-Policy e-Government Institute at Sungkyunkwan University (Republic of Korea), assessment of development level of municipal websites of the Republic of Lithuania is presented. Municipalities were ranked by E-Governance Performance Index, which was determined as the sum of partial indexes of five measures: Privacy/Security, Usability, Content, Services and Citizen Participation. By comparative analysis of results of that evaluation with results of other evaluation where websites were evaluated by the point of view how websites meet requirements to websites of State and municipal institutions, determined by decry of the Government of Republic of Lithuania, is shown, that these results differs essentially. It confirms that results of e-government assessment results are determinated by the system of parameters of evaluation, and assessments of different investigators sometimes can be incomparable.
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Based on Lithuanian civil servants’ representative survey conducted in April – May 2011 and qualitative research (individual interviews), the aim of this article is to discuss civil servants’ attitude to different aspects, potential issues, usefulness of performance assessment by results, adopted in 2011. At the beginning of the article problems and specificity of performance assessment based on objectives are analyzed, experience of the implementation of performance assessment in the EU countries is evaluated. The article presents an analysis of survey’s statistical data and qualitative results that reveal Lithuanian civil servants’ attitude to performance assessment’s improvement in Lithuania.
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Decentralization is frequently seen to provide an impact for the development of local government. However, for developing countries, such as Indonesia, decentralization is not adequately understood from an administrative concept or merely from the government politics. Obstacle found in local areas, such as a low index of human development, low local competitiveness and inadequate public service can become an issue by local politics to interfere local government. Two cases of local government in Indonesia, Jembrana and Banyuwangi regency can be the illustration of this matter based on the case analysis and on empirical data analysis in those two areas. A descriptive analysis revealed that Jembrana regency is successful in running its local government, that can be seen from its high innovative level. Conversely, Banyuwangi regency, despite having a blueprint of its innovative area, encounters failure in its application. Failure or success in those two areas is more heavily affected by local political intervention in those intended areas. In Jembrana, local politics does not too enormously interfere its local government, while in Banyuwangi the local politics strongly interferes.
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The article deals with the international background and the Czech constitutional background of the right to university education and implementation of the above in the legal system of the Czech Republic. It is further concerned with the background for implementation of the statutory provisions by universities’ own acts; it also explains that, with respect to the definition of the limits. The article also explains why university education in the Czech language is provided free of charge to everyone irrespective of nationality – i .e. not only to the citizens of the Czech Republic.
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Financial sector supervisory bodies are organized in different forms in different countries of the European Union. These “models” range from independent stand-alone supervisory authorities to consolidated (centralized) supervisors responsible for supervising the entire financial sector, including banks, insurance companies and securities firms. The aim of this article is to analyse the new financial market supervision approach in the Republic of Lithuania. Since 1 January 2012 the supervision of the Lithuanian financial market has been centralized. Therefore, the Central Bank of the Republic of Lithuania is the sole supervisory authority that supervises the Lithuanian financial market. The new financial market supervision approach has led to the further amendments. Under the Law on Bank of the Republic of Lithuania (Central Bank); since 1 January 2012 the supervision of the financial market funding partly derives from the fees imposed on regulated entities. The operational independence of the supervisory authority leads to more transparent and professional financial market supervision and unburdens public administration costs. However, as it is mentioned in the article, the global financial crisis has led to the disputes that the supervision of the national financial market as well as the financial market of the European Union should develop a harmonized core set of supervision standards that can be applied throughout the European Union. Therefore, by the de Larosiere report as a basis, the European Commission is attempting to establish a new European financial supervision system. Consequently, the new macroeconomic supervision approach will impact the further developments in the Lithuania’s financial market supervision.
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Public administration system has been restructured by agencification in many countries. The new or reorganized agencies have been established. These agencies rely more on business management methods pursuing to improve public services quality, increase people's confidence in government, public administration, reduce costs, etc. Using principal – agent theory paper gives theoretical justification and by investigation of the reasons, means and results of agencification paper reviews practical experience of agencification in countries: Great Britain, Ireland, Portugal, Germany, the United States of America, and Sweden. Despite the divergence in agencification (agencies types and structures, legal framework), general trends and key success factors – political consensus and strategic reform management – can be determined.
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The article based on the method of “Three Step Public Sector Strategy Model” and Lithuanian and foreign scientific literature analyzes peculiarities of Lithuanian police institution strategic planning and the realization of the strategy. In the first part of the article the principles of strategic planning – planning, fulfilling and evaluation – applicable for public administering have been revealed. The second part of the article analyses Police Department strategic activity plans and reports evaluating them according to the methods of three step model and presents recommendations for the improvement of activity planning. In the article the author draws the conclusion that the Police Department Strategic Plan aims, tasks, measures and evaluation criteria are often worded in the wrong way, i.e. more orientated towards the administrative activity of the department – the number of carried out programs, prepared legal acts, and not towards the defence of the public interest. Judging by police activity reports it is difficult to evaluate the stage of program’s realization, as there is information either on strategic planning or on the results, but not on the realization. During the analysis no connection between the program’s reports, their evaluation and planning of the next year budget has been found. The activity reports remain a formal document, practically having no influence on the future assignations.
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Customer relationship management is a relatively new discipline, which became popular in the last decade. It has to be noted that customer relationship management is oriented toward current customers and allows to attract new customers. Therefore, customer relationship management is related to long-term success in the market. The paper analyses infrastructure, institutional and internal issues which restrict customer relationship management in Lithuanian real estate companies. Presented investigation is based on questioning of real estate companies which encounter the problems of economy slowdown.
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Thanks to achieved productive collaboration of the highest level government institutions with the academic community experts, a national strategic planning system is shaping that is very significant for further development of Latvia. General principles of the system have been approved by the Law on Development Planning System. The conceptual document A Growth Model for Latvia: People First defines a knowledge-based human-centred development scenario. The National Development Plan has been approved as a mid-term programme for implementation of the Model. To monitor progress towards the goal an integrated quantified quality of life index was developed; the index includes priorities essential for Latvia’s population and it is based on objective statistical data. Polycentric development and strong cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region are priorities among strategic tasks that have been outlined to realize the growth. But the current two-faced EU model cannot be evaluated as the most optimum and beneficial for development of Latvia as well as other EU Member States.
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In recent years, some large multinational companies have begun moving their R&D centers to China. As a result, cross-cultural management for R&D projects becomes challenging due to the cultural diversity. Based on the technique of relative importance index (RII), this study examines the gaps between the Chinese and Western cultures in R&D projects for multinational firms. The findings show there is a significant difference between Chinese and Western cultures. The top five factors transformed into self-reflection statements include: 1) You could accept your manager criticizing your mistake in public; 2) You avoid any conflict with your manager; 3) Objective of the project is the target for the whole project group; 4) You do not mind the methods for your performance evaluation; and 5) You pay greater attention to improve “relationship” among colleagues. Overall, these findings reveal managerial implications for R&D managers that the need to recognize and manage cultural difference is an important component in cross-cultural project management.
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This paper examines empirically the relation between governance mechanisms and the performance of Euro-Mediterranean microfinance institutions (MFIs) in terms of outreach and sustainability. Specifically, we found that performance-based compensation of managers is not associated with better performance of MFIs. The results identify trade-offs between MFIs outreach and sustainability depending on larger board size, and on higher proportion of unaffiliated directors. Moreover, the study shows that the more women there are on the board the better the performance, and reveals that external governance mechanisms help MFIs to achieve better financial performance. This study also allows us to distinguish other factors leading to better sustainability such as Regulation, and the use of individual lending methodology. However, the MFIs, active as NGOs, seem to be more consistent with their social mission than with their financial performance.
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The article deals with economic bubbles and analyses their possible causes and tools for the prediction of such bubbles development. An economic bubble is the commonly used term for an economic cycle that is characterized by a rapid expansion followed by a dramatic crash. While some bubbles happen naturally as a part of the economic cycle, some also occur as a result of investor exuberance and serve as correctives. These typically happen in securities, stock markets, real estate and various other business sectors because of certain changes in the way key players conduct business. The well-known and widely discussed bubbles in asset markets were analysed and compared trying to define the main features, causes and signals of such bubbles creation: Dotcom, Telecom, Health South Corporation, NASDAQ, etc. These bubbles were analysed in the article by applying the logistic growth model allowing to predict the bubbles creation as a result of growth satiation in the conditions of limited resources.
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This paper tries to empirically verify the argument that institutional factors such as enforcement mechanisms, political and economic stability, stable and reliable, transparent legal and regulatory framework and corruption are critical in explaining the behaviour of the foreign direct investment inflows in Turkey. The main objective of the study is to ascertain the nature of the obstacles and impediments to the greater flow of foreign direct investments into Turkish economy for the recent period by focusing on the results of a questionnaire applied to the executives of 52 multinational corporations operating in Turkey in 2006.
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Easy access to organizational knowledge is fundamental in dynamic environments that demand continuous firm adaptation. In that scenario we believe that mentors have a key role as access facilitators to knowledge in the change periods. We have developed this study aiming to explore the role and importance of mentors as knowledge access facilitators. We have approached that role in two different ways. We set apart the knowledge base in two categories: Information centers and organizational memory, accepting that mentors act differently accordingly. Based on the literature reviewed we were able to stage a three-dimensional theoretical setting (mentoring, knowledge, and change) and produce three research questions. We have addressed these research questions using an exploratory qualitative approach to five different firms from three industries apart. This study contributes to the literature at least in two ways. Firstly, it connects the mentor figure to the knowledge base’s access, exposing the importance of the mentor as a knowledge access facilitator during change periods. Secondly, by categorizing the knowledge base in two different ways, we are able to explicitly differentiate mentor roles accordingly.
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Lately, distance studies, which are attempting at the best possible education for students and satisfaction of as many of their study needs as possible, are gaining wider popularity. Online questionnaires are increasingly used to get detailed opinions of distance learning students on various issues of studies. During the project EURASIA, it was identified that VEBER online questionnaire can be a useful tool for VGTU beyond the scope of the project EURASIA. An online questionnaire has been developed to facilitate the process of surveying related to implementation of the project EURASIA. The assessments helped to recognise that this tool helps VGTU to enhance its institutional system related to e-learning. Having identified the potential of this tool outside the scope of the EURASIA to project, further experiments have been carried out to assess how this tool can be further developed to accommodate the requirements of the project EURASIA other institutional systems. The research showed that distance learning students not only want to express their opinion about the study process, but also to be active participants in shaping strategic alternatives of the study process by electronic means. In order to implement this idea, the authors proposed the Web-based Model of Multiple Criteria Ethical Decision-Making for Ethical Behaviour of Students and used as a basis to develop the Ethical Web-Based Decision Support System (E-DS). Using the features of the VEBER online questionnaire, the developed Model and the E-DS System, the process of distance learning can be additionally humanized and adjusted to ethical norms, which would have a positive effect on the whole distance learning process. Thus, the institutions participating in the project EURASIA or offering distance learning studies could use the features of VEBER online questionnaire, the developed Model and the E-DS System in their activities. It would stimulate more efficient application of moral norms in the distance learning process.
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Text of interview published without summary.
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Until recently, research on cultural heritage seemed to be the unquestioned realm of the humanities. However, the development of the heritage market and the need to consider the benefi ts of its preservation and contemporary usage from many diff erent viewpoints – not only artistic and historical, but also taking into account the perspective of creation and implementation of public policies and strategies, and the overall context of socio-economic development – calls for an active engagement of economics in its analysis as a specifi c product in the market. Th e author considers two very important issues with respect to theoretical approaches to cultural heritage seen from the perspective of cultural economics and its specifi c sub-fi eld of heritage economics: the question of heritage values and public goods characteristics of many heritage products.
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I was born and grew up in Northern Ireland during a time of political and sectarian division, violence and discrimination. It was an early introduction to the suffering of people created by a society divided by religion and national allegience and its violent consequences. My parents taught me to see beyond the labels which divided and diminished us and to value people for themselves. I hated the narrowing effect that prejudice and bigotry had on all our lives and I was acutely aware, even as a young woman, that there must be a better way of resolving such conflict. [....]
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