Generolo Jono Žemaičio Lietuvos karo akademija

In the coming decade, implementation of smart specialisation strategy concept will be topical for all EU member states given a special focus made on the areas of technology and innovation. Members of academic community conduct research in these areas to identify the challenges and offer optimal solutions to the complicated problems. It is of particular importance for the countries with a relatively modest capacity for innovation. Some of the aims of the Latvian smart specialisation strategy are to establish a platform for cooperation between research community and the private sector and to develop nanostructured materials industry. The paper analyses research results in the field of nanotechnology in Latvia using the data on the publications and projects, as well as publication citation indices. Publicly available information on performance results of the selected enterprises in the field of nanotechnology is analysed and benchmarked using public data on performance indicators of the manufacturing industry with regard to technological intensity.

The paper aims to study how coaching can accelerate the innovation processes in organization considering the peculiar issues of the use of coaching in Latvia and Lithuania. For this purpose, literature review and a qualitative dominated mixed method approach to obtain and analyze the data are implemented. A literature review was undertaken to find out the current trends in the theory and practice of coaching in the context of innovation and organizational change. The findings of the literature review are compared with the results of two surveys. The aim of the first survey is to explore the experts’ opinion about the manifestation of coaching in organization. The aim of the second survey is to find out the importance of conditions to promote coaching in organisational context. The results of literature review and surveys demonstrate that coaching can accelerate the leadership development, strategic thinking and collaboration within and across teams. These processes are crucial for organization’s innovation capabilities.

The level of citizens’ financial knowledge has a great impact on financial well-being of individuals and society. In this regard public authorities in many countries initiated a process of development and implementation of National strategies to enhance financial literacy level. The initial step of developing a national strategy is evaluation of current situation. Thus, financial literacy measuring issues are frequently debated in the academic and public environment. The goal of the current research is to develop a measurement instrument to evaluate the level of financial knowledge of Latvian citizens. The present paper reflects the results of the authors’ conducted survey based on the sample of 169 respondents. A set of 12 questions on financial matters was developed to detect perceived importance and complexity of financial literacy components, as well as to get financial literacy self-assessment scores. Data was processed by means of SPSS, applying such methods, as analysis of means, analysis of frequencies and independent samples t-test. Received results assist to precise the content and wording of questions to be included into the questionnaire for evaluation financial literacy level of Latvian citizens.

Sustainable development of country economy is being driven by various factors. Economy of each country is comprised of economic sectors. External and internal development drivers differently affect different economic sectors, as a rule. Since economic sectors are not homogeneous, their expanding or contracting depends on behavior of concrete market players; i.e. business companies. The paper aims to reveal factors affecting patterns of development exporting companies attributed to industrial sector and its sub-sectors of Lithuanian economy. Methodology of the investigation is based on development of theoretically grounded questionnaire, targeting revealing factors impacting international competitiveness of industrial companies. Impact of factors, attributed to external business environment, and role of factors attributed to internal development forces are to be indicated. Obtained results, is expected, and would allow to foresee trends and main drivers of further development of exporting Lithuanian industrial sectors.