Regional Formation and Development Studies

In today’s globalized world, national identity and its transformation becomes an important object of research, most of which are discussing by philosophers, historians, journalists, sociologists, geographers, demographers. The identity or perception of identity is changing constantly. This type of research requires an interdisciplinary approach, an application of spatial and social dimensions in order to analyse the characteristics of identity in evolving economic, political and geopolitical conditions.

Social phenomena, documented in newspapers’ articles, and the publications for public enlightenment were analysed by hermeneutic – interpretative, content analysis and grounded theory methods. The components of unstable human environment were found: envy, abrogative behaviour of people with highest position in life, a lack of social confirmation, negative influence of parents, and the cruelty. Reaction to unstable surroundings was the retirement from public and civic life, the usage of alcohol and drugs abuse accompanied by violent outbreaks, and emigration. Retirement from civic life is strengthened by self – criticism, self – isolation, big sensitiveness for critics, inactivity; usage of alcohol and drugs are tied with inner emptiness, social and psychological vulnerability; real emigration linked to belief in possibility to run away from unstable and cruel surroundings.

The importance of regional economic growth is emphasized in many countries and their regional policy documents. This issue is emphasized also by many researchers. D. Genaro and E. Melchor (2010) state that by the time of A. Smith, economists started to focus on a problem of economic growth. According to the authors, in recent years, economists have moved from economic interest in the operating cycle analysis to the medium and long-term revenue growth influencing factors analysis. This analysis is very important because as stated by L. Ayala and A. Jurado (2011), many countries or regions economic growth reduces poverty indicators; inequalities reduction is encouraging by policy measures. Despite ongoing national regional policy programs or the Structural Funds of the European Union or the Structural Funds, significant regional differences still exists. There must be emphasized the fact that in theories of regional development a lot of attention are paid on focus what conditions are favorable for creating economic growth in the region. There are focused on modernization of the economical sectors and international business development. The new models of regional development theories visible bring together economic, management and other modern concepts of social integration.

European Union support for Lithuania undoubtedly makes a positive impact on economic growth and it structure. But there is even more important that a considerable funds flowing to different regions of Lithuania, and are focused to their economic development, the promotion of cohesion and human resources development. From the beginning of Lithuania’s independence the territorial differences of regional development began to emerge, which progressively deepened over time. These differences affected the sector of human resources: the economic activity of the population, education, knowledge, skills and other areas.The development of human resources is one of the objectives of European Union’s regional policy. Therefore, the aim of the study – to analyze the changes in use of European Union funds in Lithuania’ municipalities over the 2007–2013 period.

Each responsible personality who seeks productive outcomes in the professional activity tends to experience stress. Stress is an inseparable element of the contemporary professional activity. The analysis of the causes of the experienced stress and an appropriate choice of the stress management techniques enable one to cope with stress and to prevent its negative manifestations in an organization. The aim of the research: after the investigation of the distribution of stress as a psycho-social factor and the ways of coping with it in Klaipeda district educational organizations, to make an action plan for coping with stress with the aim of improving the work climate in organizations. The material and methods. For the research, educational organizations in Klaipėda district were chosen (in accordance with the data of Klaipėda District Municipality of 2011, there were 19 organizations with the staff of 599 at the time). The survey was conducted in September 2011 in collaboration with school public health care specialists from Klaipėda District Public Health Office. 286 questionnaires were handed out, and 246 ones were returned and found appropriate for the investigation. 31 questionnaires did not meet the criterion of representativeness, and 9 people refused to participate. For the statistical processing of the obtained data, the methods of descriptive, comparative, and correlation analysis were applied. The statistical processing of the data was carried out by the SPSS 17.0 software.The outcomes. The stressors characteristic of the staff of Klaipeda district educational organizations were established: responsibility for the future of the staff in the organization; personal skills and abilities completely fail to be realised in the organization; the work is monotonousand full of tension; the necessity to suppress one’s genuine emotions and not to show one’s true feelings; andresponsibility for the actions of other staff members. Statistically significant correlations were established between the coping with stress and the skills of management oriented towards problems and emotions. Conclusions. The staff of Klaipeda district educational organizations tended to belong to Type B personality, i.e. people whose response to stress was rather calm, however, they experienced work-related stress. To reduce the stress or to cope with it, an action plan was recommended. The responsibility for the said plan implementation was to be taken by the head of the institution.