Regional Formation and Development Studies

For twenty years, as soon as the talking about the possibilities brought in by cycles and attractiveness of the cycling related activities had started, the party of skeptics immediately appears arguing that absence of good bicycle paths means absence of bicyclists per se. Or, on the opposite – as long as the cycling mainstream is weak there is no need for paths. Therefore this dilemma goes on for more than 20 years in Lithuania, thus at least one generation in the country has lost its chance to appreciate the joy of full-scale cycling. On the other hand maybe we shouldn’t have to complain thoroughly, as fragmented cycling trails are constantly being fitted. But how the fragmentation and mostly unplanned trail scattering may be associated with regions remains unclear. Even more specific question – can trips on bicycles lead to more integrated regionalization and who are those using cycling paths in the future – the authors try to answer in this article.

Since early nineties, Latvia has remained a net importer of agri-food products. At the same time, both exports and imports of agricultural commodities and processed food products has consistently grown, with total trade turnover increasing. The objective of the study is to determine the trends in development of barter terms of trade in Latvian agricultural commodities and food products. To reach the research objective, barter terms of trade indices were compiled with various levels of data aggregation over the period from 2002 to 2012. The research results in general show consistently higher terms of trade in agricultural commodities in comparison with terms of trade in processed food products. The differences exist between the terms of trade for the same products or product groups depending upon the level of aggregation. Trends in development of barter terms of trade indices for agricultural commodities and processed food products are different. In general, barter terms of trade for whole agri-food sector is not deteriorating.

Straipsnyje analizuojama persiliejimo reiškinio kilmė organizacijose aplinkos pokyčių kontekste ir tarporganizacinių veiksnių įtaka inovatyvių produktų (paslaugų ir prekių) kilmei. Straipsnyje didelis dėmesys skiriamas potencialių, turinčių persiliejimo potencialą veiksnių, tarpusavio ryšiams, naujų produktų kilmės poveikiui ekonominės plėtros procesams. Nustatyta, kad žmogiškųjų išteklių kuriami persiliejimo veiksniai sietini su inovatyvių organizacijų veiklos procesais, užduočių atlikimo laiku ir efektyviu technologijų diegimu.

Customer satisfaction is considered as key factor determining organization’s success in today’s competitive market place. The growthof popularity of catering services in Lithuania substantiates the necessity of evaluation of their customer loyalty. Accordingly, theresearch was provided endeavouring to evaluate customer satisfaction with catering services in Lithuania. The obtained resultsreveal that evaluating either customer satisfaction with overall catering services in Lithuania, or customer satisfaction with particularcaterer, Customer Expectations and Image has no direct effect on Customer Satisfaction, in addition Complaints has no direct neitherindirect effect on Loyalty. Furthermore, the created model of Customer Satisfaction with catering services in Lithuania can be usedfor any type of research that evaluates customer satisfaction with catering services in Lithuania: any the place in Lithuania and / orthe type of catering facility.

In the paper market situation of domestic steelworks during restructuring process was characterized. In the analysis the key elements of enterprises competitiveness were presented. Moreover the organizational changes in the steelworks plants and their influence on the sustainability were presented too. In the paper two kinds of restructuring were described: repair and development.

Daugelis organizacijų, siekdamos patikimų tyrimo rezultatų, pasitelkia instrumentus, kurie gali padėti išanalizuoti bendrąsias vadovaujančio asmens elgsenas ir užtikrinti tikslingą grįžtamojo ryšio duomenų interpretavimą. Atlikus tyrimą, remiantis moksline literatūra, siekta apibendrinti 360° grįžtamojo ryšio tyrimo metodo esmę ir naudą bei jo įgyvendinimo etapus vadovaujančių asmenų kompetencijų ir lyderystės tyrimuose. Straipsnio autoriai siekia teoriniu lygmeniu apibendrinti pradinę informaciją, kuria remiantis būtų galima formuoti 360° grįžtamojo ryšio tyrimo metodologiją, būtiną tam tikros organizacijos konkrečiai situacijai tirti. Taikant sisteminės mokslinės literatūros analizės, lyginimo ir apibendrinimo metodus straipsnyje apibendrinama 360° grįžtamojo ryšio tyrimo esmė bei nauda, kuri sugrupuota į keturias kategorijas; konkretizuojami du pagrindiniai 360° grįžtamojo ryšio tyrimo tikslai: grįžtamasis ryšys, siekiant tiriamo vadovo asmeninio tobulėjimo; grįžtamasis ryšys, siekiant tobulinti tiriamo vadovo veiklą. Detaliai aptariama 360° grįžtamojo ryšio tyrimo, kuris vyko trimis etapais, eiga: 1) pasirengimas; 2) administravimas; 3) stebėsena. Atliekant analizę remtasi daugiau kaip 30 mokslinių straipsnių, kuriuose tyrėjai pristato argumentus ir apibendrina tiriamo vadovo savęs vertinimo ir to, kaip jį vertina kiti organizacijos nariai, skirtumus. Straipsnio išvadose argumentuojama, kad atlikus 360° grįžtamojo ryšio tyrimą gaunami rezultatai laikomi patikimais, nes šis metodas susistemina daugybę aspektų ir padeda apsispręsti dėl elgsenų tobulinimo ir / arba keitimo veiksmų. Tyrimo rezultatai atskleidžia realią respondentų vertinimų (nuomonių) pusiausvyrą, suteikia validžią ir konstruktyvią informaciją, siekiant įgyvendinti besimokančių organizacijų tikslus, padeda planuojant asmeninę individo karjerą bei jo veiklą.

Theoretical analysis of research literature has revealed that prevention of risk or at least mitigation of the negative impact of risk factors on the company‘s employees requires reliable management of ergonomic factors risk, which can occur due to insufficient management of processes, quality, possible emergency situations, accidents. The above aim can be achieved by various preventive measures, just keeping in mind that the procedures of the management of ergonomic risk factors are based on assessment of ergonomic risk factors and priorities focusing on the relevant occupational safety aspects in the business company. However, prior to drafting an accident prevention plan, each company should consider the general environment of the company, conditions, and available resources.

Cross-border cooperation is one of the advantages of the EU that presented conditions for economic growth of all Member States when the organization was formed. The aim of the work was to look for quantitative indicators and data processing methods that would characterize cross-border interactions, while looking for and marking out high-integration regions. The authors’ previous studies (Paiders, Paiders, 2010) were aimed at conducting measurements of cross-border interactions in the cluster of European states. In this work, the authors use the already-familiar methodology and indicators in order to analyze the cross-border interactions of African states. The layout of highly integrated borders allowed marking out four groups of African states with the greatest economic integration with neighboring states.

Innovation is often recognized as a vital source of competitive advantage for business. Taking into account the conditions of increasing globalization at a high level of intensity as well as a rapidly changing technological landscape and also continuous customer demands for new products and services on the modern market, it is needed to assume that businesses have to innovate in order to survive and prosper in the contemporary environment. In the context of the paper at hand the main attention is given to the analysis of the theoretical and empirical aspects of the concept of innovation. There were applied such economic science research methods as monographic, grouping, reference, generalization, graphical analysis and content analysis.

The article aims to show that the main and most important prerequisite for successful hotel business growth in current promptly changing business environment becomes development of innovation in the hotel industry. Though the term innovation is already widely defined by many researchers, it is considered in the article as a subject for future discussions leading to proposed scientific classification of innovations based on selected criterions. Evaluation of the process of innovation appearance in the hotel market allowed creation of the model, presenting the main influences and attributes of the whole innovation process in a hotel industry. Afterwards, the article discusses some specific innovation tools that are essential for hotel enterprises and which could be challenging for hoteliers in Ukrainian market nowadays. Based on the empirical research results, the obstacles which hinder up-to-date innovative operations in Ukrainian Radisson chain hospitality market are discussed. As well, concerning prospective innovation trends for Radisson Hotels in Ukraine, advices for future innovation implementation were proposed.