Management and Leadership Development Needs: The Case of Lithuania

Abstract

The emerging business issues underscored by technological advancement, economic and political crises, the increasingly tangible effects of climate change, mass immigration, income inequality and resource depletion create new managerial and leadership challenges. In order to respond to these challenges with appropriate management and leadership development and relevant educational offerings, management education institutions in Lithuania have to comprehensively recognize specific business challenges and understand what the consequent management and leadership development needs are. With this in mind, the authors of this study followed a three-step approach for data collection. First, Lithuanian country data was collected through the World Bank database. Secondly, interviews with decision makers from businesses were conducted (34 in-depth interviews were performed in total). Finally, online questionnaires were filled out by 16 companies in Lithuania. The analysis of the interview data followed the grounded theory approach by Glaser. Research results revealed that there is a gap between Lithuanian management education and market needs. Since educational institutions and businesses have different business models, investments need to be made to converge the two positions before the mutual benefits can be reaped.