Problems of Management in the 21st Century

1-2

Authors: Editorial Board

Cover page, PMC, Vol. 4, 2012

4-6

Authors: Vincentas Lamanauskas

Education monitoring is quite a fresh field of the science of education, especially in Lithuania. This field is closely interrelated with methodology of educational research, education politics, education management, education economics, etc. The term “monitoring” has recently been introduced. It was first used by naturalists. This term was used in 1972 at a United Nations conference on environmental issues (in Stockholm). The connection between educational diagnostics and education monitoring is evident. Before we carry out monitoring at a certain level of the system of education we must have relevant instruments for collecting, processing information and the like. Monitoring results are influenced by such substantial factors as quality of instruments, mastery of specialists, social peculiarities of the groups under investigation, lapses in the stream of information, divergent motivation of monitoring participants, statistical regression and many others. All these factors can show themselves jointly, in different combinations, compensate one another etc. Some of them are controlled and in most cases depend on the qualifications of monitoring specialists, for example, quality of instruments, mastery etc. Awareness and evaluation of these factors reduce the risk of obtaining overweighted results. The essence of monitoring is consistent diagnostics of in-system processes, when different necessary measurements are carried out in order to get information about development (succession of condition) of the system under investigation (Lamanauskas, 2004). Timely corrections in the progress of educational changes help to avoid gross mistakes and undesirable subsequences.

21-29

Authors: Jolanta Bieńkowska

The article aims to present issues connected with a commitment in relation to the current transformations of working conditions. Presently people work for many employers during their working lives; hence insecurity of employment became a determinant of the work situation. On the other hand, the employees are guided by the need for personal fulfillment and intellectual development in the professional field. This raises the question of whether organizational commitment, understood as a commitment to the workplace, is still a research problem, or whether another kind of commitment is developing- commitment to the occupation. This dilemma is the result of analysis of the behavior of employees. The observations indicate that some people do their work at a high level regardless of place of employment, identifying themselves with the profession performed. They are guided by the need for professionalism, not by the need for staying in the organization. The article aims to present two positions on commitment, by providing arguments in favor of importance of both aspects according to the different needs of employees. Moreover, this paper outlines the proposed directions of empirical research, undertaking of which would allow for broadening knowledge about changes in attitudes of people towards work.

45-56

Authors: Stephen N. M. Nzuve, Edith A. Omolo

The objective of the study was to investigate the extent of the practice of the learning organization within the Kenyan commercial banks and determine the relationship between the aforementioned practice with organizational performance. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. It was a census survey comprising all the 43 banks licensed to operate in Kenya under the banking Act. The sample frame included all the commercial banks listed in the Central Bank of Kenya website. The 43 banks were further divided into 3 tiers based on profitability for the year 2008 as indicated in the Banking Survey 2009. Primary data was collected using a structured questionnaire while secondary data regarding organizational performance was obtained from the banking survey 2009. The data collected was analysed using descriptive statistics in terms of frequency and percentage tabulations, cross tabulations and Pearson’s correlation coefficient to determine the relationship between the practice of the learning organization and organizational performance. The study established that most Kenyan commercial banks had to a large extent adopted the following practices adopted by most organizations: development of information systems designed to inform and empower, formative accounting control, learning approach to strategy development, participative policy making, reward flexibility and supportive leadership. The practices least adopted were the ones involved in enabling structures, creating a learning climate and boundary workers as environmental scanners. Findings indicate that there is an inverse relationship between the practice of the learning organization and organizational performance. This would suggest that there are other factors that have to be taken into account to determine and explain this discrepancy, hence the need for further study. In conclusion, the study established that two thirds of the Kenyan banks had adopted the practices of the learning institution. The study also indicates that there is a tendency for Kenyan commercial banks to focus on certain aspects of the learning organization instead of seeing the whole picture and focusing on the organization as a dynamic entity. Interest in the learning organization has been stimulated by the need to attain sustainable competitive advantage The researcher recommends that the Kenyan commercial banks should embrace more systematic, definite and concrete steps towards adopting a learning culture, in order to survive the onslaught of competitive forces in the global market. The study suggests further investigation into whether the practices were adopted as part of a systematic strategy to develop the banks as learning organizations or whether they were simply adopted on an ad hoc basis for purposes of expediency and organizational survival.

63-73

Authors: Viara Slavianska

When employees leave the organization, whether at their own will or not, the consequences could be extremely serious. High turnover costs much, because it involves direct financial expenses for recruitment and selection, appointment, training and adaptation of the newcomers; at the same time, the indirect (hidden) costs, because of lost productivity and missed opportunities, constitute about 70–85% of all. This research was conducted in a large Bulgarian business organization with the aim to determine the impact of HRM practices on the personnel turnover, measured by the inclination to leave. There were formulated conclusions about the ability of the HRM system to retain the employees and respectively recommendations to the management of the organization. The methods of data collection included in-depth semi structured interviews with the manager of the HRM department and anonymous inquiry among 140 employees and workers. The results were subsequently processed with SPSS.

86-92

Authors: Gregory Olevsky

New quality of the modern market is shown in expansion of scales of cooperation of corporations and the small enterprises. Deciding condition of the successful formation of the competitive advantages is the level of the competence of the personnel of the enterprise. Competence becomes critical for the enterprise in case its management achieves organic composure of techno–technological, financial–marketing and organizational–managerial resources during the process of realization of business idea. The concentration of resources of the enterprise on directions of the core сompetencies makes necessary to search for rational ways of realization non–сore сompetencies. The small enterprises are capable to represent themselves as performers non–сore сompetencies of the enterprises–customers first of all in those cases they have unique resources for realization of technological component of their own сore competence. The modern microenterprises successfully cooperating with the big size enterprises of the including corporations, do it, as a rule, in the form of outsourcing. Outsourcing can be considered not only as one of the forms of cooperation, but also as the means of strengthening the market positions of the enterprise. Thus it is necessary to recognize that the effect from the use of outsourcing is reached by the company–the customer as a result of reorganization of its organizational structure and qualitative changes in work of management.