The Role of Familial Trust in the Leader-member Exchange

Drawing on the study of micro and small family businesses in a transition economy, this research explores the effects of trust transferred from the family to the business system. Specifically, it examines how the leader’s interpersonal trust in the member affects the quality of the leader-member exchange (LMX) in familial dyads. The results reveal that interpersonal trust has a positive effect on LMX and the degree of this association depends on the leader’s orientation. This relationship is strengthened by the leader’s orientation, however, only in the case when the orientation is family-centric. The moderating effect is not statistically significant when the leader adopts business-centric orientation

Customer Perceptions of Value: Case of Retail Banking

Recently, a growing interest in relationship marketing approach attracted much attention of marketers to the customer value creation and delivery as the most important task of marketing strategy. The fact that in the period of economic recession, the retail banking sector customers are more intended to re-assess their relationship with financial organization made marketing experts focus on the investigation of the factors that create and increase customer value in new light. Value creation and delivering to the customer in financial markets has been viewed as a competitive priority and a key component of an organization’s long term success. The aim of the current research paper is to assess the factors of customer perceived value in the retail banking sector during the period of economic recession. The research method involved the survey conducted with 200 retail customers of commercial banks in Lithuania. In addition, this research specifically examines the perception of value in the transitional economy. The study results revealed that in the period of economic recession the dimensions of emotional (affective) value (i.e., the reliability and security of bank, good psychological climate when contacting with bank personnel) and functional value (i.e., the quality of service provision, the competence of contact personnel) are rated higher by customers.  Meanwhile, the factors of social value (i.e., the established long-term relationship, personal beliefs, social integration, the opinion and recommendations of relatives, acquaintances and/or friends) are rated lower

Exploring the Relationship Between Innovative Work Behavior and Leadership: Moderating Effect of Locus of Control

The topic of innovative work behavior has recently received an increased amount of attention due to a highly competitive, complex, and dynamic economic environment. This paper examines the effect of the leadership styles (transformational and transactional) on innovative work behavior. Moreover, the study explores moderation effects of internal and external locus of control in the relationship between transformational and transactional leadership and innovative work behavior. The findings indicate the importance of alignment of the transformational and transactional leadership styles with employees’ locus of control while aiming to transform organizational and individual resources into innovative outcomes. More specifically, the results show that contingent reward has stronger relationship with internal locus of control, whereas passive management by exception has stronger relation to external locus of control proving that enhancement of external employee motivation may boost employee innovative work behavior. Therefore, this study confirms that different leadership practices show specific linkage to certain locus of control type subordinates, meaning that their effectiveness can rise, if applied to this specific type of individuals. The research contributes to the existing knowledge of leadership styles and locus of control role in managing innovative work behavior and overall to the knowledge about how innovation can be managed in modern organizations

Preferred leader behaviour in the business sector of Lithuania: Follower diversity perspective

Publisher's version (útgefin grein)Leadership roles in sustaining effective management have recently become paramount due to the need to keep up with the fast technical and societal developments. Moreover, business sectors in the postcommunist transformation settings are facing distinct leadership challenges suggesting a different pattern of leadership behaviour. The main contribution of this study was to build on follower-centric approach in leadership and investigate followers’ diversity in regard to leader behaviour preferences as a means to benchmark followers’ attitudes in the post-communist country still undergoing societal cultural shift. The purpose of the study was to investigate the leadership behaviours in Lithuanian cultural context. This study used 129 responses to the Leader Behaviour Description Questionnaire XII in order to identify the followers’ preferences of the leadership behaviour. ANOVA and correlation analyses were used to identify how followers’ age, level of education, and gender are related to leadership behaviour. The results indicated significant differences in regard to gender and education level of the follower towards the desired leader behaviour. However, the age of the follower did not affect leader behaviour preferences. This indicates that followers in Lithuania have diverse attitudes towards perception of effective leadership. Studying leader behaviour within the context of the followers’ socio-demographic characteristics contributes to the increase of knowledge about leadership behaviour in post-communist emerging economies.Peer Reviewe

Skaitymo svetimąja kalba supratimo tobulinimas

Gauta 2000 10Vytauto Didžiojo universiteta

Skaitymo modelių lyginimas, jų taikymas klasėje ir įtaka supratimui

Reading, an important skill in any language, becomes more difficult in a foreign language. The investigation of expository text comprehension between language groups conducted in 1999 at Vytautas Magnus University and South Carolina University (Škudienė, 1999) showed that the students of both language groups (Lithuanian and English) performed better in literal comprehension tasks. On these grounds, the assumption was made that teachers emphasize a bottom-up rather than a top-down model of reading. The aim of the research was to investigate whether a top-down or a bottom-up model of reading is emphasized during prc-, while-, and post- reading activities at the intermediate level of the English language instruction. The results of the research exhibited that most of the pre-reading and while-reading activities used in reading instruction are based on top-down models while post-reading instruction is interactive with more emphasis on bottom-up models

The relationship between educational objectives and teaching methods in mamagement and business administration education

Išaugęs susidomėjimas universitetinio ugdymo kokybe pastaruoju dešimtmečiu yra socialinės universiteto sistemos pokyčių rezultatas. Universitetai vis daugiau dėmesio skiria mokymo kokybei dėl daugybės priežasčių, įskaitant ir siekį padidinti įstojusių studentų skaičių bei sudaryti sąlygas mokytis skirtingų gebėjimų asmenims. Įvairios aukštojo mokslo institucijos ir disciplinos skiriasi savo programų ugdymo tikslais ir jose taikomų mokymo metodų deriniais. Projektuodamos ir įgyvendindamos naujus kursus aukštajame moksle, institucijos dažniausiai priima sprendimus bandydamos suderinti ugdymo tikslus ir mokymo metodus, kuriais šių tikslų bus siekiama. Šiame tyrime priimami sprendimai grindžiami vadybos ir verslo administravimo programos mokymo metodų ir ugdymo tikslų prielaidomis. Prielaidos buvo tikrinamos atliekant ISM Vadybos ir ekonomikos universiteto dėstytojų ir Vadybos ir verslo administravimo pagrindinių studijų studentų apklausą. Pirmiausia dėstytojai ir studentai buvo paprašyti išdėstyti pateiktus ugdymo tikslus pagal svarbą. Po to dėstytojai pareiškė savo nuomonę apie įvairių mokymo metodų efektyvumą šiems ugdymo tikslams pasiekti, o studentai buvo paprašyti įvertinti šių taikytų mokymo metodų efektyvumą. Įvertinimui pasiūlyti šie mokymo metodai: paskaitos, pristatymai, kiekybinės užduotys ir atvejo studijos. Tyrimui pasirinkti šie ugdymo tikslai: pasirengimas ateities karjerai, sąvokų suvokimas, problemos sprendimo įgūdžių įgijimas, pasirengimas egzaminams, bendravimo gebėjimų ugdymas ir informacijos rinkimas. Tyrimo rezultatai rodo tam tikrą dėstytojų daromų prielaidų ir studentų suvokiamo ugdymo tikslų ir skirtingų mokymo metodų santykio neatitikimą. Straipsnyje diskutuojamos dvi tyrimo rezultatų implikacijos: 1) mokymo metodai turi būti labiau pritaikyti ugdymo tikslams ir 2) aktyvus mokymasis taikant atvejo studijas ir seminarus (angl. tutorial) turbūt geriau atitiks ugdymo tikslus nei tradicinis paskaitos metodas.The increased interest in the quality of university teaching has been caused in particular by the changes in the social context of the university system in the past decade. Universities has been focusing greater attention on teaching from a number of quarters and for a number of reasons, among them increasing student enrolments and different abilities classes. The educational objectives of different higher education programmes and the combination teaching methods used by them, vary between institutions and disciplines. When designing and implementing courses in higher education, institutions usually make decisions regarding the match between educational objectives to be set and the teaching methods to adopt. In this study the decisions are based on implicit assumptions about relationship between teaching methods and educational objectives for the management and business administration education. The assumptions were tested with a survey of faculty and students involved in undergraduate courses in Management and Business Administration at the ISM University of Management & Economics. First the faculty and students were asked to rank order a set of educational objectives in terms of importance. Then the faculty were asked how effective they thought different teaching methods would be in meeting these objectives, and asked students how effective they thought a range of teaching methods had been. The teaching methods considered included lectures, presentations, quantitative assignments, and case studies. The educational objectives included preparing for the future career, understanding concepts, developing problem solving skills, preparing for examinations, developing communication skills, and gathering information. The results indicated some discrepancies between faculty assumptions and student perceptions of the relationship between educational objectives and different teaching methods.Two related implications of the findings are discussed: 1) choice of teaching method should be limited more closely to educational objectives and 2) active learning through case studies and tutorials is more likely to meet objectives than the traditional lecture method

Skaitymo svetimąja kalba supratimo tobulinimas

The researches on the understanding of a written text in a foreign language reveal a close relationship between the understanding and the structure of a text and vocabulary knowledge. While performing researches with native (English) readers, it was admitted that the texts of various exposition (informational) structures (comparative/contraposition, narrative, causative and problematic/decisional) were understood differently (easier or harder). However, there were no researches on how the texts of different structures influence the understanding of the main idea and what is the influence of vocabulary knowledge to the understanding of those texts by two linguistic groups (L1 - native readers; L2 - readers of a foreign language). The aim of the research was to determine the influence of the structure of expositional texts and the knowledge of vocabulary to a word-by-word understanding and the understanding of the main idea of two linguistic (Ll and L2) groups of university students. 42 students (L1) of the 1st grade of the University of South Carolina (USA) and 115 students (L2) of the 4th level of English of the University of Vytautas Magnus (Lithuania) answered a test according to which the understanding of texts of different structures and the vocabulary knowledge of both linguistic groups was determined. The research reveals that vocabulary knowledge is a very important skill that helps to understand a text written in a foreign language in detail (word-by-word understanding) and it is not so important in order to understand the main idea of the text. It means that the importance of the vocabulary studies should be more appreciated when a student is taught a word-by-word understanding and it is less important when training the understanding of the main idea

Quality of undergraduate management studies in changing university enviroment

Baltijos valstybių universitetų vadybos studijų erdvėje vykstančius svarbius pokyčius sąlygoja šie veiksniai: glaudesnė auditorinio mokymo ir realaus pasaulio´ sąveika, rinkos plėtra, internacionalizavimas ir vis didėjanti studentų įvairovė. Autorė pateikia trijose vadybinės krypties aukštojo mokslo institucijose atlikto tyrimo rezultatus: ISM vadybos ir ekonomikos universitete (Lietuva), Rygos mokytojų rengimo ir švietimo vadybos akademijoje (Latvija) ir Estijos verslo mokykloje (Estija). Pagrindinių studijų vadybos programos dėstytojų atsakymai į tyrimo klausimus rodo, kad nepaisant pastaraisiais dešimtmečiais išaugusio dėmesio dėstymo universitetuose kokybei, paskaita ir auditorinė diskusija tebelieka dominuojančiais dėstymo metodais. Daugelio respondentų nuomone, jų dėstymo metodai yra pakitę, vis dažniau pasirenkami naujoviškiausi dėstymo projektai, beveik trečdalis respondentų yra lankę dėstymo kokybės tobulinimo kursus.The environment for teaching management in Baltic States’ universities has undergone profound changes. The factors involved are: greater interaction between classroom teaching and the “real world”, market expansion, internationalization, and increasingly diverse students. The author reports on the survey findings from the three management higher education institutions: ISM University of management and economics (Lithuania), Riga Teacher Training and Educational Management Academy (Latvia), and Estonian Business School (Estonia). The responses of undergraduate management educators indicate that, despite clear indications of greater attention and increased interest in the quality of university teaching in the past decade, lecture and classroom discussion are the dominant instructional techniques. Many of the respondents indicated that they had changed their instructional techniques in the direction of innovative teaching projects, and almost a third of the respondents have taken a course to improve teaching quality

Improvement of foreign language comprehension

Gauta 1999Vytauto Didžiojo universiteta