Visuomenės saugumas ir viešoji tvarka / Public security of public order 2026, vol. 38, no. 3

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly integrated into business education and organizational practice, creating new opportunities for productivity improvement, decision support, process automation, and value creation. However, the availability of AI technologies does not automatically result in effective adoption or the realization of organizational value. Differences in users’ knowledge, trust, perceived usefulness, ethical awareness, and organizational readiness may influence how AI is perceived and used in different contexts. This study examines attitudes toward AI adoption in business by investigating the relationships among perceived usefulness, AI literacy, trust in AI, ethical concerns, and behavioral intention, while also exploring differences between anticipated AI use among students and experienced AI use among business practitioners. A convergent mixed-methods research design was employed. The quantitative component was based on a structured survey of 140 business students at Vilnius University Business School. Data were collected through Google Forms using a five-point Likert scale and analyzed using descriptive statistics, reliability and validity assessment, and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The qualitative component consisted of semi-structured interviews with seven business practitioners who had experience using AI-based technologies in organizational settings. The interviews explored AI use in decision-making, organizational readiness, trust, risk perception, accountability, and changes in work processes. Quantitative and qualitative findings were subsequently integrated through methodological triangulation. The quantitative results indicate that perceived usefulness has a significant positive relationship with behavioral intention to use AI (β = 0.42), while trust in AI also positively influences behavioral intention (β = 0.29). Ethical concerns demonstrate a significant negative relationship with behavioral intention (β = –0.21). AI literacy is positively associated with trust in AI (β = 0.38), while perceived usefulness also contributes positively to trust formation (β = 0.35). The structural model explains 63% of the variance in behavioral intention (R² = 0.63). The qualitative findings complement these results by demonstrating that practitioners assess AI adoption not only in terms of potential benefits but also through organizational readiness, accountability, task characteristics, trust, and implementation constraints. The findings indicate that AI adoption should be understood as a multidimensional socio-technical process in which technological usefulness interacts with human capabilities, trust, ethical considerations, and organizational conditions. The study contributes to the AI adoption literature by connecting individual attitudes with contextual and organizational dimensions of AI use and by comparing anticipated and experienced perspectives on AI adoption.

Negative statistical data and the resulting trends indicate an exclusively worsening situation regarding the phenomenon of forced labor and its proliferation globally, as well as a considerably troubling situation in Lithuania. Moreover, the causality of forced labor, linked to contemporary realities -such as the migration of daily life into the digital sphere or even the war in Ukraine -further substantiates the trends of the consistent spread of this negative phenomenon. This demonstrates the relevance of the topic and underscores the need to continue research into the challenges surrounding the regulation and application of criminal liability for exploitation for forcedlabor in Lithuanian law. The research results of this article aim not only to provide new knowledge about exploitation for forced labor (services) as a criminal offense, but also to enable a better understanding of the newly emerging weaknesses in its legal elements, as well as the new challenges that arise when incriminating such acts in practice. Therefore, the purpose of the research is to analyze the problems of qualifying exploitation for forced labor (services) as a criminal offense in Lithuanian criminal law, thereby aiming to better understand the legal construction of this offense and identify the weaknesses in its constituent elements. Consequently, the tasks of the research are based on three main areas of this analysis: namely, the assessment ofthe objective and subjective elements of exploitation for forced labor (services), as well as the evaluation of additional qualifying features in Lithuanian criminal law. The article utilizes research methods such as comparative analysis, document analysis, systematic analysis, and generalization methods. The analysis in this article substantiated the difficulties arising in the assessment of certain objective and subjective elements of exploitation for forced labor (services) as a criminal offense, and provided specific solutions related to the proper evaluation of the modus operandi, the determination of guilt, and additional qualifying features, such as forcing someone to work under conditions of slavery or other inhuman conditions.

This article examines the gender gap in national security institutions as a multidimensional phenomenon shaped by both structural inequalities and discursive biases. While gender equality is increasingly recognized as a factor contributing to organizational effectiveness and institutional legitimacy, significant disparities persist, particularly at higher hierarchical levels. The study addresses how structural factors and public discourse interact in sustaining gender inequality within the security sector. The research applies a mixed-methods design, combining quantitative analysis of survey data (N = 128) from defense, law enforcement, and internal security institutions with computational discourse analysis of 148 media publications (2019–2024). The findings reveal statistically significant vertical gender segregation: women are less likely to occupy leadership positions and experience slower career progression. Gender remains a significant predictor of leadership attainment even after controlling for professional variables. Women also report greater exposure to stereotypical evaluations and limited access to informal professional networks, indicating persistent informal organizational barriers. Discourse analysis shows that women are more frequently represented as exceptional or defined by personal characteristics, whereas men are portrayed in neutral, professional terms. This symbolic “markedness” reinforces gendered perceptions of competence and normalizes male dominance in leadership roles. Topic modeling further identifies a distinct discursive cluster that frames women as a separate category, emphasizing challenges and gender-specific narratives. By integrating structural and discourse data, the study demonstrates a consistent association between institutional inequalities and patterns of public representation. The findings suggest that structural and symbolic factors operate as interconnected mechanisms sustaining gender inequality. The study contributes to the field by introducing an integrated analytical framework that combines data science methods with gender and discourse analysis in the context of national security, offering both theoretical insight and practical implications for policy and institutional reform.

The dichotomy or synergy, when law enforcement, which has the main function to stand for the rule of law, and also for human rights may be discussed from several perspectives, such as the role of emotional intelligence or effective performance. When it is doubtful that a direct and one-sided answer will be formulated, it is, however, important to ask the questions in a democratic country. Human history, at least the one recorded in writing or preserved in technological artefacts such as cities, irrigation, and similar, spans approximately 10 thousand years or so (at least until new findings are uncovered), but the history of democracy is rather short. Apart from the rather limited and short-lived form of democracy in Antiquity (Ancient Greece), the more recent democratic thought and its manifestations do not extend beyond 300 years. The urgency of discussions about what it means to live in a democracy is rooted in the fact that democracy remains rather fragile and limited globally: the Democracy Index does not increase; rather, it declines. Not even half of the world’s population lives in a democracy: specifically, 45%. Then 39% live under authoritarian rule, and 15% in “hybrid regimes” that combine electoral democracy with authoritarian tendencies. Thus, anyone who lives among those 45% has both expectations and a certain responsibility to live up to and respect the privileges we enjoy. Thus, it is imperative to discuss how our state and its institutions, specifically, the police force, function. The aimofthis paper is to discuss whether there are preconditions for promoting a paradigm of thinking, where requirements and expectations for police officers are in synergy with the support they need in their demanding work.The empirical data were collected during the 1st quarter of 2026, under the framework of the POL-COM (KA220-VET -Cooperation partnerships in vocational education and training project: A developmental and educational platform and gamified tools for training police officers and similar professionals, with respect to communications) project.

This paper is dedicated to exploring the context of some of the research questions that are at the heart of the research project („Policijos veiksmų modeliavimas siekiant padidinti bendruomenės saugumą krizinėse situacijose“/ “Modeling the Police activity for the enhanced security of communities during crises/adverse situations” (No. S-LU-26-3) 2026-2027, which is financed by the Lithuanian Research Council). While the issues of what is the difference between security and safety have been explored in-depth by one of the authors of this paper1and2; another theme of utmost importance is contextualization of police (law enforcement in general, please, note, law enforcement and police will be used in an intermingled manner further on, as synonyms, though, surely, there is a difference between the terms). At the same time, the fabric of contemporary society is being analyzed. However, in this paper the main focus is on the relative, perceived, and also reported preparedness of police to react to adverse/crises, which -the authors of these lines will bethe first to admit -were not the direct focus. In contrast, the second publication was developed in 2021. That is, when the full-fledged war in Ukraine was still in the feared, but not yet manifested, future. We, researchers, have to come to terms, that sometimes our predictions, the feeling of unease that we try to communicate to the wider society, are unpopular at the time of communication, and may be even both not helpful and depressing, when the predictions come to be true; and yet, even if a small proportion of compatriots are made aware of the trends and either re-configure their professional lives, and/or contribute to the best of their abilities to building up wider resilience, the likelihood of a lesser degree of losses increases. This is especially true for professionals, particularly those who work directly in critical institutions, such as medical care providers and other critical services providers, such as law enforcement.