Regional Formation and Development Studies

pring winds encourage the rebirth of nature, and the journal is full of new scientific articles. Much attention has been paid to communication and the use of electronic platforms. The article by R. Vaičiulė analyses the use of Facebook, K. Krauze and B. Sloka analyse the content of web pages, the article by S. Volenkins, B. Sloka and K. Čipane investigate Internet commerce, whereas J. Jiang and A. Kontauts examine the influence of social media on civic participation. The issues of youth policy are presented in the article by K. Gomolka, meanwhile the organizational culture of educational institutions is studied in A. Giedaitis and A. Ispiryan’s article, followed by T. Titova’s insights on intellectual capital. The article by S. Statneckytė and J. Dvorak analyses the reform of the Lithuanian public service. The article by P. Zientarski is also devoted to public administration issues and assesses the results of the election for local authorities. The journal also provides articles for readers interested in economic issues. For example, R. Čiegis, L. Diliuvienė and A. Dilius analyse the effect of income inequality on economic growth, whereas S. A. Vasina and B. Sloka highlight income inequality issues from different gender aspects. Finally, N. Novozhilova and M. Pliss present insurance market in Latvia, and V. Valiulė together with A. Zonienė evaluate sustainable investment.

Tyrimo tikslas – sudaryti pajamų nelygybės poveikio ekonomikos augimui kreditų rinkos netobulumo kanalu vertinimo modelį ir jį patikrinti skirtingose šalių grupėse. Tyrimo objektas – pajamų nelygybės poveikis ekonomikos augimui kreditų rinkos netobulumo kanalu. Atlikta mokslinės literatūros analizė, mokslinės literatūros apibendrinimas, palyginimas, statistinių duomenų analizė, grupavimas, panelinių duomenų koreliacinė ir regresinė analizė. Vertinant pajamų nelygybės poveikį ekonomikos augimui taikomas mažiausių kvadratų metodas. Atliekant ekonometrinę analizę duomenys logaritmuojami, diferencijuojami, apskaičiuojama kintamųjų sąveika. Rezultatai pagrįsti 28 ES šalių paneliniais 1995–2014 m. laikotarpio duomenimis. Nustatyta, kad kreditų rinkos netobulumo kanalu pajamų nelygybė ir didėjantis privataus sektoriaus kreditų lygis skatino ekonomikos augimą visose šalių grupėse, tačiau augantis išsilavinimo lygis neskatino ekonomikos augimo. Jis neskatino ekonomikos augimo ir esant prielaidai, kad nėra pajamų nelygybės.

This article provides a synthesis of various scholarly opinions on how to improve organizational culture of the school. The qualitative research methodology was chosen for empirical research. The survey was conducted by interviewing respondents from an educational institution in Lithuania. The semi-structured interview method was applied to the study. The results showed that the factors having influence on the success and effectiveness of organizational culture and its improvement are: strong relationship between parents and the community, a student-centred learning environment, consistent institutional guidance systems, norms, values and working environment practices. In order to improve organizational culture of the educational institution, it is necessary to improve the communication and cooperation system, develop open management that would guide the community members to be responsible for their actions, to create the atmosphere involving all community members in self-learning providing feedback, promote leadership, initiate changes. The educational institution uses these determinants to create a learning organization.

Until the 2015 elections, youth policy in Poland was treated as a separate domain. There is no uniform legal basis concerned with the matters of young people. Youth rights are dealt with in several articles of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland as well as a number of Acts: on Public Administration Branches, on the Education System, on Higher Education, on Employment Promotion and Labour Market Institutions, on NFZ General Health Insurance, on Combating Domestic Violence, on Social Employment, on Public Benefit Organisations and Voluntary Service, along with the Labour Code and certain government regulations. The first consistent document concerned with youth issues was the National strategy for young people for 2003–2014, adopted in 2003. Thereafter, the matters of youth policy were discussed in the report entitled Youth 2011, the document Poland 2030 – Third Wave of Modernity, the Long-Term National Development Strategy, and the Government Program for Social Activity of Youth for the years 2015–2016. Following the 2015 parliamentary elections, youth issues were given a lower priority. In the election manifesto of PIS (Law and Justice party), much attention was devoted to family policy, with youth policy being regarded as part thereof. Consequently, on 13 February 2018, the Family, Senior and Social Policy Committee of the Senate of the Republic of Poland adopted a Resolution on “Integrated youth policy”, presenting it as one of the areas of family policy.

This study is focused on social media in China and its influence on youth civic participation. In China, a trend of increasing usage of social media platforms has been observed, in particularly WeChat, Weibo, QQ, Douyin, and Meitu. The aim of this research is to explore the link between the use of these social media platforms and civic participation among the youth in China, specifically, whether social media platforms have positive effect on encouragement of youth civic participation. The use of social media platforms is measured by the number of social media accounts, the duration of usage of these accounts, and the average time spending on social media accounts weekly, while civic participation through social media is to measure both civic participation activities and its link with the social media usage.

Higher education export is gaining more and more importance taking into account international competition, the benefits offered by the industry and demographic changes in many countries – the number of local students is reducing due to low birth rates and extensive emigration of young people. There are many academic publications on several aspects related to higher education export. The aim of research is to analyse foreign students’ evaluation on the importance of different organisations’ (universities, agencies dealing with higher education export, ministries) webpage content and design for higher education export. Research methods used: scientific literature review analysis, evaluation of webpages by experts, survey of foreign students (using the evaluation scale from 1 to 10, where 1 means ‘do not agree’, and 10 – ‘fully agree’). Data obtained from the foreign student survey are analysed by indicators of descriptive statistics (arithmetic mean, mode, median, range, standard deviations, standard error of mean), cross-tabulations, correlation analysis and factor analysis. The obtained research results have indicated narrow places and challenges for the information placed in respective webpages and webpage design which could be practically implemented.

This paper considers and analyses current trends of the global, European and Latvian insurance markets. Insurance constitutes the most important way to minimize and eliminate economic losses in a company resulting from unfavourable events. Insurance is one of the most efficient methods of enterprise risk management. The entrepreneur must be informed regarding the offered insurance services, the insurance market participants and the insurance market state for the insurance coverage implementation. This information will enable to provide reliable insurance coverage in order to ensure the enterprise’s financial stability. The authors analyse the financial activity index and conduct its comparative analysis, establish general trends and existing differences in the insurance market development in the world, the EU and in Latvia. The paper highlights the insurance market structure and differences in the scope of the life insurance sector existing in the EU and in Latvia. Moreover, description of insurance types, participants of the insurance market in Latvia and the insurance market’s state are also provided. The findings can be used by insurers and entrepreneurs for insurance coverage implementation in Latvia.

Lietuvos narystė ES implikavo pokyčius įvairiose valstybės valdymo srityse, taip pat ir valstybės tarnyboje. Straipsnyje aptariami narystės laikotarpiu vykę arba inicijuoti pokyčiai Lietuvos valstybės tarnybos sistemoje vertinant jų atitiktį bendriems Europos administravimo principams. Daugiausia dėmesio skirta XVII LR Vyriausybės iniciatyvai reformuoti valstybės tarnybos sistemą, kurią per visą narystės laikotarpį galima pavadinti vienu ryžtingiausių žingsnių vykdant reformą. Vis dėlto ne visi Vyriausybės pasiūlymai valstybės tarnybos žmogiškųjų išteklių administravimo klausimu artimi proeuropietiškų administracinių principų ir vertybių institucionalizavimui. XVII LR Vyriausybės iniciatyvomis valstybės tarnybos optimizavimo, darbo užmokesčio ir priėmimo į valstybės tarnybą klausimais siekta depolitizuoti valstybės tarnybą, akcentuojant profesionalizmą, taip atliepiant bendrus Europos viešojo administravimo principus. Tačiau vykdomosios valdžios politinis elitas, nors ir įžvelgė valstybės tarnautojų mokymo efektyvumo trūkumą, nebandė ieškoti galimybių, kaip gerinti mokymo kokybę, o į įstatymo projektą įtraukė pataisas, mažinančias mokymų valstybės tarnyboje prieinamumą ir būtinumą, be to, nepateikė jokių reikšmingų pasiūlymų, kaip tobulinti aukštesniosios valstybės tarnybą.

Intellectual capital as a discipline appeared a decade ago as a result of practitioners’ observations proving the need to raise the issue up to the scientific level and management discipline. The history of the new science is very short compared to other fundamentals and what is important it is developing at rocket speed that attracts extensive attention to the field. Intangible assets are major creators of business value and a source of competitive advantage. This statement can be proved by the fact that intangibles represented 87% of the market capitalization of listed companies forming part of the S&P 500 stock-market index in 2015. Moreover, investments in R&D in many cases exceed the profit of the company to ensure long-term progress and business success in the future pioneering in the market. Therefore, innovation leads to investment in the creation of intellectual capital for businesses and provides opportunities for researchers and practitioners. The aim of research is to revise the findings of scientific papers, analysing the evolution of the phenomenon throughout the time span. The findings of the paper present the structure of modern research and the block chain of the research evolution on intellectual capital as well as identify gaps and open questions to analyse.

Recent academic researchers have indicated that there are possible inequalities concerning work and pay in different countries, professions and economic sectors. The aim of current research is to analyse recent scientific findings on the wage gap depending on gender and empirical data in Latvia using EU-SILC surveys, Labour Surveys and monthly statistical data on wages and salaries for women and men. The findings indicated that in various economic fields and occupations women were under-represented, and amongst most of these fields the modal net wage interval for women was lower than the modal net wage interval for men. It was also concluded that in January 2018 the average gross income from work of women and men were statistically significantly different, confirming that men on average earned more than women.