Flexibility in Lithuania Enterprises: Comparative Analysis of Garment, Food and

Abstract

The article presents the comparative analysis of flexibility in Lithuania enterprises. The choice of the theme is based on some aspects. First, the influence of highly dynamic environment conditioned by rapid technological changes, increased consumers’ requirements, competition globalization. Trying to keep up with the dynamics of situation, it is very important to perceive the capability of an organization and understand what is going on in their business environment and to take actions before it might be too late. On the second hand, Lithuania enterprises have functioned under the conditions of transitional economy for a long time. This economy has been characterized by the fusion of planned and market economies. A lot of researchers who have studied the peculiarities of Western Europe enterprises have stressed the influence of planned economy, its unwillingness to change, difficulty to adapt to rapidly changing market requirements, low enterprise flexibility, of avoidance risk, fear of responsibility as well as low initiative of employees. It can’t be unlikely stated that today enterprises follow only the principles of market economy, especially when the interior activity of an enterprise is concerned. The attitude of leaders and employees is of the utmost importance, heaving in mind tasks, decisions, enterprise management, changes and development. This attitude has been formed for decades and although it changes with time and is closely connected with changes of business cultural values, the process is not rapid. Third, enterprise flexibility is very much dependent on the sector type. The enterprises of low technologies are functioning under less dynamic conditions than as it is in the case of the enterprises of high technologies. This influences their flexibility. This article presents various authors’ notions of enterprises flexibility, generalizing the main enterprises flexibility features. Basing on the scientific literature analysis a questionnaire was prepared. The survey was carried out in Lithuanian national enterprises where national culture peculiarities based on particular country social, economic, political, and technological development are demonstrated the best. Total 25 garment, food and IT enterprises were surveyed, 748 respondents. Analysis of descriptive statistics was used for research results process. Research results have proved the hypothesis about the flexibility of different enterprises. Surveyed IT enterprises appeared to be the most flexible as compared to garment and food enterprises. However, a general flexibility evaluation should be taken into account. This flexibility could be evaluated as an average one.