Mačiukaitė-Žvinienė, Saulė

The university mission is considered as its social function, and the university is a pivot of strategic social transformation. The culture of changes mostly tends to increase the organisational flexibility and orientation towards the market needs. In embracing changes, individual researchers, units and organisations should build a more competitive and entrepreneurial approach and be more accountable for the performance. The integration of declared principles, values and commitments into the overall organisational activities, managerial processes and practices creates added value for the institutionalisation of university social responsibility. In this respect, the aim of this paper is to examine empirically how vice-rectors for research and deans of faculties comprehend and manage social responsibility in research performance. Fifteen informants were interviewed: vice-rectors for research and deans of faculties, representing at least six Lithuanian state universities. Using the method of semi-structured interview the collected data were then analysed in the context of the grounded theory. The research findings demonstrate that the vice-rectors for research and deans of faculties formally understand the responsibility; while it indicates the narrow attitude to both mission and responsibility of the university. Such perception of responsibility hampers the development of university social responsibility with corresponding societal expectations, and its systematic implementation in internal processes.

This is the second part of meta-analysis on the interrelation between NGOs and democracy in Baltic States. The relation is monitored by integrating the regression technique to find out which factors have contributed most to the development of democracy. The assessment by integrating the model of traffic light has been applied to determine the effectiveness of factors and the level of their development in the context of democracy. The results of the research show that third sector does impact democracy in the Baltic States, secondly that in all three countries the ways in which NGOs influence democracy differ, thirdly as well as the level of influence towards democracy differs.

This article analyzes the development of the third sector in all three Baltic States in the context of legal environment. The aim of the article is to evaluate the influence of legal environment to the development of third sector. The subject of the analysis – the impact discourses of legal environment on the development of third sector. For the purposes of the analysis, these methods are applied: NGOs Sustainability Index, correlation, and comparative methods. The article is divided into two sections. The first section describes the logic behind NGOs Sustainability Index through enumeration of the component factors and clarification of the relative measures, and attempts to evaluate the development of the legal environment that applies to the third sector. The second section applies correlation for the purposes of determination of the legal environment impact on the development of third sector.

The development of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe has become a popular subject of research since the collapse of the USSR. Many scholars have produced comparative studies gathering diverse data and providing interpretations. However, not much has been published on the relation between civil society and democracy, and the way in which non-governmental organizations, as a part of civil society, impact democracy. This is the first in a series of articles analysing, on the qualitative and quantitative bases, the influence of civil society on the development of democracy in the Baltic States, by applying meta-analyses. In tackling the objective of this study, the article uses correlation on thirty four impact factors defining the primary impact of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on democracy and thirty six NGOs’ secondary impact factors. The primary factors are more important for the interpretation of impact contexts. The importance of secondary factors could be valuable as well, though it should be noted that their role could be questionable. The secondary factors impact the development and professionalism of the NGO sector, which in turn influences democracy. Therefore, secondary factors can be seen as consequential, though not directly.

This article addresses the question of how the emergence and development of NGOs differ in respect to their environmental form in different Baltic states. Attempting to do this, the research looks at three important aspects related to third sector building and performance in the Baltic States. Firstly, the article describes the main political features and roles of the civil society in the development of democracy by using collective action theory. Secondly, it analyzes the conditions for the emergence ofNGOs in contemporary Baltic countries, while involving the theory of region building and theory ofP. Joenniemi about the emergence ofNGOs. The article considers a few periods: before 1991 and after till 2006, while dividing it into four periods before 1991, and 1991-1997, 1998-2003, 2004-2006. The following helps to identify the peculiarities more objectively and assess broader results of participation while adapting collective action theory. As a result, the article assumes that the development of civil society is progressive, but not sufficient in the context of international issues and public motivation.