Regional Formation and Development Studies

Thearticle aims to show why and how trust and its components of are importantwithin organizational context. Trust in virtual teams is a rathernew and little studied field. Explicitunderstandings of what is a virtual team together with which dimensions definesuch team are provided. Afterwards, the article discuss what specificchallenges virtual teams face when attempting to establish trust between itsmembers providing knowledge on what actions and behaviors can build trust in avirtual team and overcome the challenges specific to virtual teams. Due tocertain virtual teams’ specifics (geographic dispersion, electronic dependence,dynamic structure and cultural diversity) trust in these teams is usually low. Basedon the empirical research results methods for building trust in the virtualteam are suggested.

Professional education is becoming more and more important in the development of the national economy and ensuring the competitiveness

Šiame straipsnyje analizuojamas paskirų organizacinės kultūros charakteristikų suvokimas (pozityvus vertinimas), atsižvelgiant į padalinio vadovo emocinį intelektą. Pripažįstant, kad organizacijos išskirtinumui konkurencinėje aplinkoje reikšmingos įtakos turi jos organizacinė kultūra, svarbu tinkamai išnaudoti visų galimų veiksnių poveikį, tarp kurių įvardytinas ir vadovo emocinis intelektas. Straipsnio koncepcija remiasi esamos ir suvokiamos organizacinės kultūros išskyrimu: objektyvi (egzistuojanti, matoma) ir subjektyvi (suvokiama, nematoma). Atliktas empirinis tyrimas (anketinė apklausa) leidžia teigti, kad tarp vadovų emocinio intelekto ir organizacinės kultūros pozityvaus vertinimo egzistuoja statistiškai reikšmingas ryšys. Koreliacinės analizės rezultatai atskleidė, kad aukštas vadovo emocinio intelekto lygis gali būti vienas iš veiksnių, nulemiančių didesnę darbuotojų asmeninės iniciatyvos laisvę, organizacijos ir darbuotojų asmeninių tikslų suderinimą, stipresnį vadovo paramos ir identiškumo jausmą bei darbuotojų pasitenkinimą atlygio sistema.

This article aims to review economic advantages of the one of the most modern cutting edge technologies, namely blockchain for eProcurement. As eProcurement (including its part – Supply chain) is a concept consisting of plenty of different processes, therefore specific advantages per such major different processes are explained. Assumptions and pre-conditions of Blockchain application are explained. Article‘s main conclusion is that due to the main characteristics of Blockchain technology (safety, transparency, reliability, speed and cost efficiency) payment settlement and products‘ shipping tracking/inventory management are eProcurement‘s phases that could benefit from this technology the most, among others (such as analysis – requirements‘ gathering, sourcing/vendors‘ selection and contract management cycle).

Šiandien klimato kaita yra didžiausias iššūkis ateities kartoms. CO2 emisija per pastarąjį dešimtmetį dėl miestų plėtros ir gyventojų

Welfare in its narrow understanding means the state’s material help given to the members of society. It also may be understood as the whole of the state’s activities aimed at multi-level support for various social groups. The aim of this paper is to show different elements of material help given to society by the state which help society to meet social security. Also, the findings based on some examples of the current Polish history show how this kind of state’s support may help politicians to gain success in elections. The author argues that the same reality, i.e., social help, may be used for people’s welfare, however, it may be also used to obtain political goals. It must be noticed that using welfare for political goals often happens the situation when electoral promises are not necessary implemented after a particular party wins the election. To achieve the main purpose of this research the method of analysis was applied. Today, welfare can be used in both ways – as a form of ensuring the social safety of society and as an effective and successful tool in election campaigns.

Japanese family firms are distinguished by various interesting yet different characteristics from their counterparts in other countries. Among these characteristics are the governing structure of the ‘ie’ system, the influencing role of ‘codes of merchants’, the adoption of non-blood sons to succeed to the business, and the long-lived phenomenon of century-old family firms. Despite numerous important studies explaining these characteristics, our essential knowledge about the rational logic behind them remains limited. Thus, to further aid our understanding of these characteristics and the logical essence, this article reviews a range of literature on institutional embeddedness, including socio-political history, cultural values, and religious influence on Japanese family firms. The article also proposes a research direction to comprehend better the institutional logics behind Japanese family firms and their behaviour.

The article builds on the author’ comparative analysis of advantages and disadvantages of regional dimensions (both towards the European Union and the CIS region) of Belarusian foreign policy in framework of multilateralism. The lack of political cooperation since 1997 didn’t affect a lot the dynamic of economic bilateral cooperation between the EU countries and Belarus (since 1995 the EU is the second trade partner for Belarus after Russian Federation). Contrary, it is growing tendency in the CIS region in certain shift from bilateralism to multilateralism in pursuing national security, political and economic interests. Multilateral regional structures, from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) between Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russian Federation (with membership of post-soviet countries) to Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with membership of Russia and China and observer status of India, Pakistan, Iran and Mongolia and status of dialogue partner for Belarus, Turkey and Shri-Lanka are gaining the power as the essential modes of regional governance, though being still different in integration priorities of member states and fragile in institutions. Existing difficulties should not overshadow gains within those organizations, nor regional dynamism in general by assuming that regional approach towards multilateral cooperation are thought to be more efficient when dealing with local, subregional and regional challenges and problems.

Innovation development process in companies is described by several challenges. One major problem is that there is much confusion about what it takes to develop innovations and what factors affect the innovation development process. The paper focuses on innovation process’ affecting factors in Latvian market. The paper’s goal is to identify main factors that affect the innovation process the Latvian companies. After surveying 128 companies, authors concludes that many factors affects innovation process and none of them should be ignored. Following factors affect innovation process the most and therefore should be analysed more deeply: 1) The company’s own resources; 2) High employees knowledge, competencies, skills and experience; 3) Investors’ attraction opportunities. Research also emphasises importance of company’s human resource, therefore authors suggest companies to look at their employees from different paradigm and approach them as the most valuable company’s asset.

The ability to measure public sector performance is a necessity for policymakers as well as academics and citizens of a country. This article aims to identify ways of measuring public sector performance using the measurement applicable to all countries and outlining opportunities for comparability among them. Thus, the authors highlight opportunities for performance measurement and public sector efficiency using various methods of non-parametric and parametric analysis. The starting point of the analysis considers the concept of performance, encompasses the proposed terms of productivity, efficiency and effectiveness; therefore, the measurement of public sector performance requires an exhaustive analysis in multidimensional terms, covering all core areas of a country. Moreover, understanding and developing robust international comparison possibilities will give in practice a structural framework for measuring the performance of particular relevance. Study findings indicate that performance measurement and implicitly public sector efficiency is a complex and difficult task that goes beyond simply measuring of productivity and efficiency, and requires aggregation of several key areas related to the results of a state. In summary, the analysis framework of the performance and efficiency of public sector is outlined both in terms of relevance of indicators and the methodology used. It demonstrates that methods of non-parametric analysis work at their best when all aspects of the production process can be captured in a limited number of input and output dimensions.