Leadership practices in communal organisations: Comparing Lithuania and Germany

In the discussion on “good government”, the perspective of the citizens and the public is dominating. For example, codes of conduct, codes of social responsibility or ethical codes prescribe employees of local government institutions certain behavior toward the citizens of the state. However, the question of leadership of employees in local government institutions is often overlooked. The research shows that management and leadership of employees is of eminent importance for their behavior at the workplace, such as compliance with the codes of ethics, accordingly, leadership of employees in organizations of local government is relevant for the “good governance” as a whole.
The aim of the project is to carry out empirical study on the quality of leadership in institutions of public administration in Lithuania and Germany and to publish the results in scientific journals. Given the assumption that “good governance” is not possible without a good leadership in local government institutions, in the project everyday leadership practices in local government institutions in Lithuania and Germany will be studied. Special attention will be given to the “good”, “ethical” as well as potentially “unethical” and “bad” forms of leadership.

1. Methodological Workshop I: development of the research method (qualitative interview manual).
2. Acquisition of interview persons and conducting interviews in Lithuania and Germany
3. Analysis of the interviews (N = 14) through the software for qualitative content analysis (e.g. NVivo)
4. Methodological Workshop II: comparing the interview results from Lithuania and Germany
5. Presentation of research results at national and international conferences
6. Development of recommendations for managers in the public sector firms in Lithuania and Germany.
7. Publication of the articles in a scientific journal (e.g. Baltic Journal of Management)

The target groups of the project are threefold:  1) employees and managers of local government institutions in Lithuania and Germany, 2) politicians and decision makers in local government institutions, 3) scientists, including doctoral and postdoctoral students in the field of ​​leadership research and research on local government. Since the aim is to conduct 2-3 case studies with 5-7 interviews in each country in the local government institutions, there will be about 50 persons which are directly involved into the project. The number of indirectly involved persons, such as contact brokers, local politicians etc., can be estimated to about another 50 persons.