Conference Proceedings Citation Index

Purpose - Social technologies are becoming the preferred method of communication of new generations and communication styles are evolving into a more collaborative approach. The paper presents new management practices such as social networks in organization management for developing distributed leadership. Contemporary organizations emphasize the emergence of the distributed, collectivist and non-authoritarian nature of leadership practices - opposing against unreflective mainstream perspectives that sustain authoritarian leadership norms. Sophisticated technologies could efficiency help organizations to solve leadership problems and to develop knowledge-intensive society relevant competencies.

The e-cohesion concept is a new concept introduced within the European Union's policy documents issued in October 2011 for the new financial period of 2013 - 2020 regarding the use of Structural Funds. The concept itself is not yet defined in the proposals for legislative documents and there are not neither any clear measures suggested to the Member States, nor targets for its implementation. The concept is undoubtedly related with the simplification of the management procedures, targeting the submission electronically of all documents requested to the applicants. The main solutions suggested are the digitization of the management authorities, but also the extension of the electronic signature system and the increase of the on-line security for these operations. These developments will engage hopefully a cut of red-tape, the avoidance of duplication and environment friendly procedures. This article intends to contribute to the academic debate related to this new concept and to research how the implementation of the e-cohesion concept might challenge the present systems. A short inventory of some good practices that have already been implemented in several Member States will present an insight on steps already made in this field.

The aim of this paper is to apply the multi-objective optimization method MULTIMOORA in sovereign rating analysis and thus rank the European Union (EU) Member States. The following tasks are thus set: 1) to describe the MULTIMOORA method; 2) to establish an indicator system for credit rating; and 3) to rank the EU Member States and discuss the future challenges. Rating agencies like Moody's rate countries economic growth drivers by internal analysts using unclear methods, probably mostly on a qualitative basis, with a final judgment by the board of directors acting as decision makers and being judge of one’s own case. These ratings influence the countries credit rating and ipso facto of their firms. MULTIMOORA, a quantitative method comparing multiple objectives expressed in different units, unless similar methods, does not need normalization being based on dimensionless measures. The analy-sis was based on objectives originating both from statistics and from forecasts and characterizing the 27 EU Member States’ economies. A Dominance Theory, summarizing the three obtained ordinal numbers per country ranks the 27 countries. As a result, Sweden, Luxembourg, and Finland were the top-ranked states, whereas so called PIIGS sates remained at the very bottom.

The present study aimed to verify how attachment to school and open classroom climate for discussion is related to adolescents’ school-related burnout. Participants were adolescents from Lithuania (N = 1741, 727 boys and 1014 girls, age 15-19 years). Questionnaires consisted of Attachment to School scale, Open for Discussion Classroom Climate Scale, and School Burnout Inventory. Cluster analyses procedure revealed five different groups of adolescents according to their perceived attachment to school and open classroom climate for discussion. MANOVA results revealed that different groups differ in exhaustion at school, cynicism toward the meaning of school and in sense of inadequacy at school.

A substantial body of research has documented associations between a variety of problem behaviors and academic achievement measures. A systemic viewpoint posits that behavioral and academic problems exert reciprocal influences on one another, which, over time, can negatively affect the development of individuals and their environments. However, the results of these studies should be interpreted cautiously, given the considerable comorbidity of problem behaviors that often exists among school-age youth. Another limitation is that those associations mostly are documented in cross-sectional studies. This longitudinal study addressed the relationships between internalizing and externalizing self-reported problem behavior syndromes (withdrawal, somatic complaints, anxiety/depression, delinquent behavior, and aggressive behavior) and mean measures of academic achievement (overall, mean score of reading & spelling, and arithmetic performance). We found some interaction effects of problem behavior, gender and grade on academic achievement. First, we found a decrease of academic achievement trough grades 6 to 8, among girls who exhibit less aggressiveness, while academic achievement among ones that are “more” aggressive stays the same across grades. Academic achievement among girls is pretty much the same across all grades, yet overall academic achievement is higher in non-delinquent group in all age groups Secondly, in boys group there is a decrease of academic achievement trough grades 6 to 8 among boys who show more aggressiveness, while academic achievement among boys who exhibit less aggressiveness stays the same across grades. The significant multivariate effect of “grade”, “gender” and delinquency interaction indicates that there is a decrease of academic achievement across grades in both boys group, yet the decrease among boys showing more delinquent behaviors is bigger than among the normal boys group.

The purpose of the study was to examine the parental rearing practices as predictors of adolescent psychopathic traits. Adolescents (N=467) completed EMBU and YPI questionnaires Final model for boys revealed that cruelty and unemotionality factor is related with a lack of father’s emotional warmth; factor of impulsivity and irritability is related to lack of emotional warmth form a father and father’s over-protectiveness. For girls, factor of grandiosity and manipulation is related with mother’s over-protectiveness; cruelty and unemotionality factor is related with mother’s rejection and lack of father’s emotional warmth; factor of impulsivity and irritability is related to mother’s rejection. These findings suggest that parental rearing practices may be related differently to the development of psychopathic traits in boys and in girls.

This study investigates the relationship between youth prosocial orientation, and personality traits and personal values in a sample of Lithuanian adolescents, in order to assess differences in personality and personal values between those adolescents who are engaged in community and school life and those who are not. Mean age of participants was 18.20 (SD = 0.69), who were high school students from one administrative region. Participants (N = 490), completed a questionnaire assessing adolescent prosocial orientation, along with measures of personality traits (NEO-FFI) and personal values (PVQ). Cluster analysis identified 5 distinct groupings of adolescents: Very involved, Involved, Average involvement, Some Involvement and Uninvolved adolescents. Comparisons revealed several significant differences among the groups in terms of personality traits and values. Results are discussed with regard to the role that personality traits and personal values may play in fostering the prosocial orientation of adolescents.