Regional Formation and Development Studies

This current issue offers you different approaches to important regional problems. All the papers can be conditionally attributed to: ecology, public administration, business, and competencies of managers. E. Cepuritis, J. Ulme, S. Graudina-Bombiza present their research results on beach litter monitoring on the Latvian coastline. Another paper by E. Lagzina, I. Kudrenickis, R. Ernsteins, and J. Kaulins analyses coastal governance methodology. Yet slightly different approach to ecology can be found in the article about media ecology presented by R. Vaičiulė. T. Gogol analyses public administration problems in the development areas of Ukraine, whereas A. Baia and H. Viveiros highlight youth unemployment in depressed areas of Portugal. Two articles are devoted a to consumer behaviour issues: one by D. Kiyak, L. Pranckevičiūtė, and I. Volskytė analyses consumer behaviour choosing dental services, while the other present insight on the museum services modernization process (L. Šimanskienė, R. Valiušienė, B. Sloka). Hilmar Þór Hilmarsson analyses the main question for Iceland: Is it worth for it to become a member of the EU or join the Euro zone? Furthermore, A. Fominienė and V. Grigaitinė discuss the feasibility to improve business incubation processes. A. Petrulis introduces readers with managerial styles that are most preferable for employees, and, finally, R. Paulienė draws attention on managerial competencies in business organizations. Thus the current issue of the journal offers you analyses ofdifferent regional problems as well as their solutions presented by scientists from Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Portugal, and Iceland.

Unemployment stands out as a major concern of policy makers, particularly in the case of youth unemployment. We intend to depict the reality of youth unemployment among university graduates in the Guar Municipality, as well as ascertain the possible causes and consequences of the phenomenon. We also aim to give some recommendations for decisions makers, so that these young people would take up residence in this region, which suffers from aging and depopulation issues. The main respondents of a questionnaire reported that it is not easy to get a job in a depressed area, i.e., the Guar Municipality, because labour supply has been reduced due to the closure of industries and companies in traditional sectors and to the lack of incentives for people and companies to take up residence in the area.

The research analyses the beach litter monitoring programme in Latvia and provides suggestions for its improvement seeking to provide necessary information for effective marine litter management on the Latvian coastline of the Baltic Sea. The beach litter monitoring programme has been enacted since 2012 by NGO “FEE Latvia” and current research has been focused on the situation assessment and particularly provides analyses on a number and distribution of the surveyed beaches, the frequency and timing of the monitoring, litter classification and counting methodology, as well as the possible programme development using the NGO work based on the citizen science approach. The results allow to elaborate several suggestions on how to improve the programme in order to provide lacking information in Latvia on the implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework directive of European Union, and to advise local municipalities in their coastal waste management practices. The suggestions include the increasing number of monitoring sites, a prioritization of the EU Master list classification protocol and an increase of sites with higher frequency of monitoring (3 times per year). Moreover, in the conducted public survey, the beach visitors demonstrated good understanding of marine litter and highly prioritized the issue. The increased interest can add public participation to further development of this applied here citizen science approach.

As competition is becoming more and more pronounced, the market entry for newly established companies is a complex task. This process becomes even more complicated if a company is small, because it has to deal not only with lack of experience, but also with a lack of funds. Business incubators have been spreading all over the world for more than half a century. It suggests that this type of sponsorship of small and medium business will be relevant in the next decade and continuous research in this field will help to provide optimal support for companies.

This study aims at presenting complex information on the specifics of regional development and its management system, as well as the experience of forming and implementing the state regional policy in Ukraine. The information in the article is presented in the context of generally accepted notions and concepts of regional development and regional policy, along with the European experience and global trends, but first of all it is based on the realities of regions and rural areas in Ukraine and on its governance model. It has been determined that to establish an effective and competent public administration of rural development should be a priority, singled out as part of the state regional policy, socially orientated and coordinated with sectoral policies.

Iceland is a small, resource rich country in Europe that is highly dependent on foreign trade. According to the World Bank classifications, Iceland is a high income economy, but with a population of a little bit more than 300 thousand inhabitants, is the smallest economy within the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Iceland is highly dependent on foreign trade, especially on trade with the European Union, where economic and political integration is evolving and the question about the most feasible level of participation is a future challenge for the country. Iceland is a member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), the European Economic Area (EEA) and the Schengen area, and the European Union (EU) candidate country until recently, when its government decided to withdraw its EU membership application. Currently, the EEA agreement ensures Iceland access to the EU common market. The question remains, what is the most feasible arrangement for Iceland’s prosperity in the long term? Should it continue to rely on the current arrangement? Should it seek the EU membership in the future and, perhaps, subsequently become part of the Euro Area? What are the possible benefits and disadvantages for Iceland joining the EU and the Euro Area?

Straipsnyje analizuojami teoriniai vartotojų elgseną paslaugų sektoriuje lemiantys veiksniai. Šiandienos visuomenėje ypač svarbus yra vartotojo individualumas bei įmonės gebėjimas prisitaikyti prie besikeičiančių kiekvieno kliento poreikių. Teorinė analizė atskleidė, kad medicininių įstaigų veiklos kokybės įvertinimas yra pacientų pasitenkinimas suteiktomis paslaugomis. Remiantis atlikto tyrimo rezultatais išskiriami ir apibendrinami aplinkos veiksniai, kurie turi tendenciją vyrauti daugelio pacientų elgsenoje bei sprendimo priėmimo situacijose, renkantis odontologinių medicininių paslaugų teikėją Vakarų Lietuvoje. Privačių klinikų pasirinkimą lemia paslaugų pasiūla ir prieinamumas, fizinė aplinka, įstaigos veiklos vertinimas bei vidinės nuostatos. Viešas klinikas renkasi mažesnes pajamas gaunantys respondentai.

Importance of sustainable coastal governance also in the Baltic sea region has been widely recognised and since such governance has to have integrative nature that requires horizontal cross-sectorial integration as well as involvement of all governance levels and subsequently organisation of vertical integration among the levels. Besides some succesfull local cases around Europe, mainly special outside projects based, there is to be recognized that the municipal integrated sustainable coastal governance has not been yet neither well and widely locally developed in practice nor sufficiently researched field in order to permit necessary design of adequate policy innovations. Practical development and local realisation of the municipal integrated coastal governance often encounters obstacles of the basic nature, e.g. because there are not sufficiently understood and applied cross- and trans-disciplinary approaches – studies and governance of the coastal territories as the complex social-ecological systems (SES). For understanding the process and structure of coastal governance, application of system thinking and system dynamics methods are to be emphasized as well. The paper demonstrates adaptation of coastal nature studies based System Analysis Framework (SAF) methodology for its application to coastal governance studies and general municipal governance system adjusting and upgrading towards coastal issues, what could be seen as the new step for SAF further planned developments. As the part of the EU BONUS programme BaltCoast project, the authors performed, including main stakeholders participation elements, the issue identification step, system definition and also a conceptual model building steps of the SAF methodology application in the particular, local governance innovations rich, case study territory – Salacgriva municipality in Latvia. Coastal governance problems in Latvia are especially relevant for rural coastal municipalities with limited administrative capacities and long and low populated coastline territories. The next SAF application steps will include development of coastal governance system scenarios using a systems modelling tool and the design and testing of complementary set of governance instruments as science-policy interface, that shall support sustainable use of coastal resources in the interests of coastal nature and culture protection, and local socio-economic development.

In recent years, relationship-based theories and research have gained momentum resulting in emergence of numerous studies dealing with various aspects of leadership. Rapid changes in the business environment are associated with development of managerial competencies and improvements of leadership within organisations.The topic of the article owes its relevance to the fact that leadership development is seen as an increasingly important strategic imperative of an organisation; moreover, in order to survive and succeed in the present day’s turbulent and highly competitive environment organisations need to develop leadership at all levels of the organisational structure. The research findings indicate that long-term success of New Leadership development initiatives depends on managerial competencies, two-way interaction between leaders and other members of the organisation, reciprocity and feedback.

Vykstantys pokyčiai valstybėje neišvengiamai paveikia ir vadovavimą organizacijose. Straipsnyje aptariami organizacijoje taikomi vadovavimo stiliai. Remiantis mokslinės literatūros autoriais, pateikiamos vadovavimo stilių sampratos, apibūdinami charizmatinio, transakcinio, transformacinio ir tarnaujančiojo vadovo požymiai, juos priskiriant šiuolaikinėms vadovavimo teorijoms, sudaryta ir pateikta vadovavimo stilių krypties schema. Vertinant vadovavimo stilių bruožus, kai kurių teiginių pasirinkimui didelę reikšmę turėjo respondentų lyties požymis. Daroma išvada, kad, darbuotojų nuomone, priimtiniausias vadovavimo stilius organizacijoje yra transakcinio ir transformacinio vadovavimo stilių derinys, nevengiant taikyti ir charizmatinio stiliaus.