Self-organisation of interests in Lithuania: capacity based model

Participatory governance is a framework where organisations and individuals meet the purpose to share their vision and create new knowledge about direction society seeks to develop. However, to handle participation... [ view full abstract ]

Participatory governance is a framework where organisations and individuals meet the purpose to share their vision and create new knowledge about direction society seeks to develop. However, to handle participation operationally is a challenging task for the public management systems due to variety of participatory actors and different levels of their preparedness. The specialised business interest groups compete with weakly organised society groups in the same pool of actors. It seems that both are subject of the same principles of self organization, which cause growth for one and stagnation for others. To respond to the challenge of participation, special organizational capacities are needed (time, efforts, financial resources and etc.). Because resources are always limited, communities focused to capacities, whether accumulation is self contained or external environment put an emphasis on it. Therefore this research is aimed to investigate the main driving participatory capacities that stimulate interest groups self organisational growth not distinguishing between types of interest whether it is business based interest organisation or any other community gathering.
Methodology is based on quantitative study where empirical data about practices to perform interest groups activities were collected via survey. Three Lithuanian policy domains (Higher education, Hath care and Economy) were selected for investigation. The target interest groups were selected according to their main interests and their activity. Research was conducted in Lithuania in the period of 2014 June – 2015 November and 355 respondents filled the questionnaire. 350 samples were analysed after validity check. Analysis was conducted using SPSS distinguishing four types of interest communities: users communities; specialisation based associations, affiliation based association; business.
Findings. The research demonstrates significant differences in organisational practices among four groups of communities in Lithuania. Behaviour of business and end user communities demonstrate similarities discussing aims and targeted activities. They are both active in networking, they recognise needs of broad advocacy, they create open and inclusive internal management, they value analytical efforts. However scale of activities varies: business communities posses more resources, so they are capable to increase the volume, while end user communities operate on volunteer basis so they afford less. Meanwhile specialisation and affiliation based communities declare their interest to be an expert for public institutions, so they are quite less motivated to find partners, they don’t recognise advocacy as a value for community and not so often create any additional values for bigger society than just members of their own organisation.
Conclusions. Research findings about the most typical of the prevailing practices in Lithuania to self organized interest communities motivate to create normative model for capacity building and explain why some self organized structures develop quicker and others face formidable difficulties. This model recognizes five types of capacities: 1.) internal management; 2.) operational and analytical; 3.) advocacy; 4.) networking; 5.) response to society needs. Every capacity type independently transited through the stages needed to accumulate absorptive capacity: exploration, adaptation and implementation. Successful transition to the knowledge implementation phase inside the range of one capacity is the precondition to develop other organizational capacity.