Mykolas Romeris University researchers Prof. Mindaugas Butkus, Assoc. Prof. Ilona Bartuševičienė, Prof. Ona Gražina Rakauskienė, Dr. Lina Volodzkienė, Prof. Andrius Stasiukynas

The main task of the public sector is to ensure the quality of life of citizens through public services (such as education, health care, social security, etc.), but constant challenges (previously the financial crisis, then the pandemic, the migrant crisis, now the war, inflation) make it difficult to implement this task.  It is difficult to ensure the continuity of the activities of public organizations that provide services during crises. Thus, the organization's resistance to the aforementioned crises and other environmental changes is very important.

Resilience is the ability of an organization to cope with and adapt to emerging challenges (such as a pandemic) and to use the experience gained to strengthen the organization. The maturity of the organization's resilience depends on the following abilities: 1) readiness for changes (crisis, etc.); 2) responsiveness and adaptation (quick reorientation to another activity rhythm, adaptation of new activity methods such as remote work, etc.); 3.) learning from events by increasing the organisation's resilience in the future (new methods learned are applied in daily activities and improved). The better these capabilities are developed, the greater the resilience of the organisation. 

MRU researchers (Prof. Dr. Mindaugas Butkus, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ilona Bartuševičienė, Prof. Dr. Ona Gražina Rakauskienė, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lina Volodzkienė, Prof. Dr. Andrius Stasiukynas), aiming to help the public sector to function smoothly even in extreme conditions, implement the Research Council's of Lithuania-supported project, "Possibilities for Determining the Resilience of Public Sector Organisations and its Impact on the Quality of Services Provided." It provides solutions that will help strengthen the resilience of public sector organisations and ensure the quality of public service provision. 

So what is the resilience of the Lithuanian public sector? There were 400 public sector organizations from various fields that participated in the study. The results of the study revealed that, in general, the level of resilience of Lithuanian public sector organizations is good and very good. However, looking more closely, readiness for change is rated average, adaptation to changed circumstances - good, and the ability to learn - very good.

The study also showed that organizational learning is mostly based on the experience of crises that have already occurred, rather than planning (preparation for change). This suggests that planning in public sector organizations tends to be formal (e.g. related to resource constraints) and therefore requires practice and refinement of plans.

When assessing resilience by region, organizations with a lower than average level of resilience are characteristic of Telšiai and Tauragė counties, while organizations with a higher than average level of resilience are characteristic of Kaunas and Marijampolė.

Small organisations with managers with less than a Master's Degree are less resilient, while medium-sized organisations with managers having more than a Bachelor's Degree are more resilient. Thus, the level of education of a manager has an impact on organisational resilience. 

Is a better manager a man or a woman or someone with more experience? This study found that neither a manager's gender nor managerial experience was related to the level of organisational resilience. Organisations with managers over 50 years of age scored slightly higher resilience scores, but no statistically significant difference was found. 

Organisations need to develop resilience skills even before a crisis: test coherent emergency plans, build sustainable networks with other organisations and leaders must demonstrate their understanding of resilience and constantly talk about it in the organization.

During the course of this scientific project, research was carried out, which made it possible to review the resilience of Lithuanian public sector organisations and to create a prototype (tool) that would contribute to increasing the resilience of organisations. The project is financed from the European Social Fund project No. 09.3.3-LMT-K-712-19-0218, according to a grant agreement with the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT).